🚰 Perfect Flow, Part One
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“Art doesn’t have to solve problems, it only has to formulate them correctly.”
—Anton Chekhov
It is a cool, overcast Fall day, and I am waiting to pick up a fifteen-pound ochre Dutch oven that my friend Ann set aside after an estate sale in New Jersey, her weekend side hustle when not working as senior corporate counsel at a multinational pharmaceutical company. She sent it home with a friend who lives close to me in Manhattan, as she always knows exactly what my kitchen is missing. (Those of you who’ve read Free Time will recognize her as my inspiration for healthy cooking systems; her family meals are fully prepped for the day by 7 a.m. :)1
As I stand outside waiting for her friend to come downstairs, a thought flashes across my mind: I have outgrown old income streams, and I don’t want to chase after them.
Immediately, a gremlin claps back: That’s a pathetic excuse.
Just as I start to believe it, my eyes cast downward, and I notice a weathered metal sign on the drainage pipe hugging the building:
You just can’t make this stuff up. Perfect flow! Hah! The website listed at the bottom: www.aperfectflow.com. If you follow it, there’s a friendly bearded man ready to help:
Just as quickly as the thought gremlin entered my mind, here was a bit of serendipity signage that I just happened to notice one second later, washing the sewage right out, clearing (draining!) the energy-draining lie before it seeped into my psyche.
The previous night, in one of my frequent two a.m. segmented sleep wake-ups,2 I played an episode of Elin Hilderbrand’s Books, Beach, & Beyond, noting an interesting section from guest Fredrik Backman, author of Anxious People (emphasis mine):
“I started writing Anxious People coming out of therapy, after I had a breakdown in 2017. I just had the classic breakdown where everything just fell apart within me.
And the first thing [my therapist] told me was, ‘You don’t suffer from stress. Stress is what the nurse at the ER has at 2 o’clock on a Saturday morning. That’s stress. What you suffer from is pressure. And we treat it differently.’
Then that was a long journey for me. And my therapist now has a very nice summer home and a boat.”
In an instant, the “Perfect Flow” sign helped me reframe my problem statement. Almost as soon as I spotted it, Backman’s podcast clue bubbled back up to the surface:3 there is a different between stress and pressure.
While under business, breadwinner, and financial pressure, I didn’t have to let the stress seep in. I would figure things out, eventually. In contrast to Instant Pot rapidity, sometimes a slow-cooked meal, simmered Dutch oven-style, is more delicious anyway. Sometimes (all the time?!) there is wisdom in the waiting.
One week prior to spotting the sign, I noted the Chekhov quote from the opening epigraph while reading George Saunders’ book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. In the explanatory text surrounding it, George writes (emphasis mine):
“The true beauty of a story is not in its apparent conclusion but in the alteration in the mind of the reader that has occurred along the way. Chekhov once said, “Art doesn’t have to solve problems, it only has to formulate them correctly.” ‘Formulate them correctly’ might be taken to mean: ‘make us feel the problem fully, without denying any part of it.’”
That also flashed back into memory when I saw the sign.
I didn’t have all the answers (or any). Not yet, anyway.
But I could at least formulate the questions thoughtfully. I could describe the problem fully while draining the sewage, relaxing into the perfect flow of it all.4
❤️
Continue reading part two . . .
P.S. This all happened last October (2024) . . . how do I remember the weather, the gremlin, the plumbing company’s name, the podcast episode, and the Chekhov quote? Perfect flow plus my Idea Collection Bucket, of course!
Join us on December 4 and 5 to build yours »
🍝 The section about Ann’s brilliant dinner systems, from Chapter 6 in Free Time:
“As my friend Ann says, “My job is cooking a healthy meal,” despite having at least two other official jobs. I have been a fortuitous taste-tester with a front-row countertop seat to her time-saving kitchen strategies. She had practice finding smart systems that work: Ann started cooking meals for her family every day when she was nine years old. For starters, she does not bother asking what anyone wants to eat for dinner, which immediately reduces decision fatigue. She grew up spending summers at her family’s mozzarella farm in Italy, so every vegetable dish starts with olive oil, smashed (not chopped) garlic, and salt. Everything is delicious.
When I asked how Ann has the energy to cook healthy meals every night after a long day of work, she exclaimed in her signature New Jersey accent, “Nobody has time for that!” Instead, she spends fifteen minutes in the morning cooking in a single pot (less mess) before her first meeting, while everyone in the house is still asleep. No one hovering in the kitchen means they can’t weigh in on her dinner menu. In the time it takes for the coffee to brew, Ann has prepared a sumptuous, healthy meal that will last for at least two days; only one if guests are around, because none of us can help going back for seconds and thirds.”
😴 Segmented sleep refers to a “sleep cycle that was believed to be standard in multiple cultures beginning in ancient civilization through the early 19th century.
During that time, many people went to sleep around sundown and woke three to four hours later. They socialized, read books, and had small meals for the next hour or two before going back for a second sleep for another three to four hours. It was only when artificial light was introduced that people began forcing themselves to sleep through the night.”
🎧 I also love what Fredrik says immediately following the part I quoted above (condensed for length, emphasis mine):
“There should be a driver’s license to become an adult. They shouldn’t have let us become adults. We were not good at this. We’re not prepared. We can’t handle all of these things that are expected from us.
I started writing Anxious People just as a writing exercise because I never thought I was going to publish it, and because I couldn’t write for a little while. I was so messed up and the pressure got to me and this whole career thing got to me. And I had done a couple of U.S. tours and I was really like, I don’t know if I want to do this. I don’t know if this is the person I want to be. I don’t think it’s making me a good person. I don’t think I’m happy. I don’t think I’m a good parent.
I was just feeling like I failed at everything. So I started writing it as a writing exercise. Maybe I can write about therapy, and that will be my way of finding out if I can still write and if I can still do this. And that grew and grew and grew and grew.
. . . And then if I do that well enough and I make it funny, then maybe I can really dive into the mental health things. Because I can’t talk, you know, there’s a certain kind of darkness in your head you don’t want to talk about if you can’t make jokes about it.”
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