Take Care of The Luxuries
“Take care of the Luxuries...”
Kim Delmar Cory
skimming off-the-shoulder white dress, her hair elegantly coiffed, the young man
boasting a tailored black Armani suit and a thousand-dollar haircut. Their hands, necks
and arms glitter with newly purchased baubles that likely cost three years' worth of my
salary.
What if this fetching duo work minimum wage food service jobs, live in a low
rent district one bedroom apartment, and used every penny of their recent lottery
winnings to purchase the clothes, hair styles, and baubles described?
So what if they did?
By today's social mores, they would likely be considered self-centered, self
serving, and self-indulgent. Shouldn't this young couple have donated a significant
portion of their lottery winnings to children's charities or disease research or to
underwrite a new archeological dig to discover the real 'truth' of what happened to
Amelia Earhart? At the very least start a sensible 401k fund towards their retirement
from Wendy's?
I hate that word 'sensible’. It offers no gist of nuance or shimmer of joy.
"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."
Dorothy Parker. Granted, famed 1920's writer Parker was a blacklisted, suicidal, thrice married,
alcoholic, but who's to say she didn't have a grand time of it?
My sister and I adhere to Parker's adage on a more economical and reasonable
level than does this lottery lucky twosome.
We are “everywoman’: unremarkable and commonplace in our daily lives.
Yet we consider Dorothy an oracle of what can and should occur with far
reaching vision and limited funds. How to transform the mundane into the extraordinary,
like wrapping twinkle lights around a trash can.
Allow me.
Let's say my sister needs a dead tree in her yard cut down. She budgets for the
tree removal dude to come out and...squirrel...look at those marvelous one-of-a-kind
Christmas-themed pillows with sparkling reindeer sporting a smoking jacket and a pipe.
And that hand-dyed wool carpet that perfectly complements her decor. Which she
realizes as she happily floats out of Target carrying her non-bargain basement purchases,
leaves approximately $6.83 cents in the dead tree removal budget.
Seriously, which would you rather look at day in and day out for pure esthetic
enjoyment? Which will make you smile and your heart glow while keeping your feet
toasty and your floor clean?
A gray dead tree stump or sassy sparkly pillows and a warm rug?
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
True to Dorothy's words, within a week a thunderstorm wind blew the dead tree
down, a neighbor came by with a mega-sized power saw and cut the now horizontal tree
into fireplace logs. Voila! The necessities took care of themselves.
Let's hear it for the unrepentant choice of opulence over humdrum. Lavish instead
of ordinary. Hochmut, as the Amish would say, instead of plain.
I applaud the demise of sensible.
We're not suggesting not to donate to the needy. Share with others. That one
should buy everything that sparkles or smells divine.
We are simply following Dorothy's sage advice.
Even a luxury as simple as obtaining a pair of strappy sandals you've coveted but
don't think you should purchase as you don't have an outfit to go with them.
Yet.
Really?
If you were to buy these sandals, wouldn't life go on? You would eat, breathe,
work and play as usual. You would purchase food and pay utilities. The necessities would
take care of themselves. And you would have these awesome sandals that made you
smile every time you looked down at your stunningly shod feet. Don't forget the
mandatory pedicure.
Likely you have an old pair of sad sandals in your closet that you have been
wearing year after year 'because you had them'. Yes, they go with everything because
they are sad and sensible. Possibly poop brown. 'Serviceable’ as your grandmother might
say. About the sandals she would likely still wear.
Get over it. Chuck them.
Doesn't that feel better? Who needs poopy sandals? What would wearing them
say about you as a person? More importantly, would they inspire sparkle in your every
step as the strappy sandals would?
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
Luxury requires living in the moment and a tad bit of risk-taking. Whimsy.
Decadence. Like a perfume that enchants and captivates with its breathtaking fragrance
long after the wearer has left the room.
Like a pair of sassy sandals or sparkly pillows.
Perhaps even that twinkle light swathed garbage can.
Luxury is not attaining that which is expensive or richly made; it is attaining that
which is heartwarming, cherished and memorable.
Rock on.