Category Archives: The Good Life

There is snow on the mountains at the Tennessee border today, still on the ground into the afternoon. I spent the afternoon in a quiet house, reading while the dogs napped and the wind blew leaves onto the porch outside.

Taking a few hours to do something simple, just for pleasure, is a rare gift these days–and, I must admit, it took a good hour for me just to give in to its magic. My mind kept returning to the ever-present mental to-do list, reassuring myself that every item on it could wait until later. I’d read a few pages, then take a moment to consciously relax my shoulders, easing tension out of my neck and jaw.

When you’re too wound up about your life to enjoy time in a rocking chair, you know something’s gotta change.

That change has begun–and, like most things (and contrary to our wishes), it ain’t a quick process. It started with… well, I’m not entirely sure where or when it started, because who can identify the first grains that start the landslide? Following our instincts and leaving a city that (despite dearly beloved friends and a heart-stopping landscape) didn’t quite fit was part of the perceptible beginning, when solid ground started to move. But there were many steps that brought us to here, and it would be impossible (and, ultimately, irrelevant) to trace each of them.

We’re here, and that slide is only gaining momentum.

My mother came to visit this weekend, and the time was more celebratory than usual. It’s hard, when the story you’re telling involves so much of someone else’s, to know how much is okay to say. But some stories are worth sharing, because they inspire the rest of us to reach for the extraordinary.

Simply put, my mother bought her freedom. It’s a thing that most people die without accomplishing–and, I dare say, a thing many probably fear. The price was decades in the paying, and she’s still learning to give herself credit for what she’s done (I’m doing what I can to help on that front!). It bears trumpeting from rooftops: she sold her house, quit her job, and is on her way to living on her own terms, in the way she wants to live.

The chief measures of success these days seem to be excessive material wealth, personal notoriety, and time for leisure and indolence. By these measures, my mother is an abject failure.

I hope, one day soon, to fail just as spectacularly.

Her success means she has ahead of her much labor and sweat, but in such sweet toil. While she was here, we talked a lot about where she’ll embark on this new life (I’m rooting for somewhere just up the road from me, for purely selfish reasons). We talked about raising and preserving food; about energy independence, old houses, how cooperation and independence intersect. About the simple pleasure of good soil and clean sweat.

We talked about reclaiming the definition of work to mean something like: that labor which produces only those things we require to sustain and make secure and nurture. We talked about variety and diversification, and how nature abhors an assembly line. How a couple acres can produce more than most of us need, and the peace that comes with being beholden to no one for paycheck or shelter or food or affirmation.

Lofty stuff. But suddenly feeling quite within reach.

So, while the Man Friend and I were already headed in this direction on our own, bearing witness to such an accomplishment still begs the question:

What are you putting off?

And why?

Is it because of your job, and the paycheck or respect or access it brings? Is it your too-big house, your too-expensive car, your cool tee shirts? Do you secretly fear being truly independent, the way some of us fear heights or public speaking, for the vulnerabilities they uncover? Remember the Dalai Lama. Remember what you wanted to be, as a kid or as a new graduate, or as yourself now, in your most unguarded moments. Remember my mom, and anyone you may know who is like her, learning to live by their own definitions, setting their own priorities.

Our first task in putting back on that which we have put off is to sort the stuff that matters from the stuff that doesn’t–a thing that probably sounds fairly straightforward, until you start thinking about it. I’m still learning myself, but I’ll give you one bit of advice: if the sorting doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’re probably not doing it right. Delve deeper–the digging is worth it.

We’re digging over here, sorting and culling and trimming fat. It’s uncovered old, done patterns, and revealed the fallacy of taking anything for granted. It hurts sometimes, but in that good way, like when strong hands knead those knots out of my shoulders, or when my legs ache from carrying my weight up and over mountains. Good hurt. The hurt of change, of growth.

The means are still in the works, but the end could be described simply as this: a life that doesn’t put knots in my shoulders; a me who can rock in a rocking chair, untroubled, for a few short hours one cold, sunny, still afternoon.

If I had to sum up what I’m trying to do with my life in one word, simplicity would be a strong contender. I am by no means going for asceticism: on the contrary, I’m finding that paring down leads to a richer experience of what’s left. Somehow, giving up things makes me a better hedonist! Much like I was just saying about the TV, whittling away the unnecessary leaves so much room for what’s truly important to bloom.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned (okay, am still learning–but at least now I’m actually listening!) is that you can’t do it all. Letting go of aspirations and dreams and plans is still one of the hardest things I have to do, but it’s essential. You can’t swim as smoothly through life with all those never-to-be-realized plans hanging on like barnacles. They–and their attendant guilt and should-haves and oh-why-didn’t-I?–are a drag, literally. Chip ‘em off, kiss ‘em goodbye, and sail smoothly.

I’ve always loved the Shaker song “Simple Gifts”:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

It’s a beautiful little melody, easy to sing, and I think I’ve always resonated with its equating simplicity with freedom.

To whit: one of my ongoing household projects is the gradual elimination of my of our electronic appliances. It’s supremely silly–not to mention morally repugnant–that we blow apart entire mountains and devastate diverse ecosystems and destroy people’s lives just so we can flip a switch and let our coffee brew while we do something else. My small lifestyle changes won’t end our reliance on coal, but I can limit my participation in it.

It comes down to the question of a balanced equation: is the cost on one side supported by the gain on the other? Are dead miners and dead fish and dead forests a price I’m willing to pay for my electricity? My answer is no, and it’s why I’m replacing most of our plug-in devices with analog alternatives, and why our entire home will eventually be off-grid.

Perhaps I need to add another contender to my word list: balance. It goes hand-in-hand with simplicity, and it gets more to the heart of the matter.

Despite the engineering marvels and industrial wonders behind the processes, most of what powers our modern lives is inherently wrong-headed. We’ve designed so many systems that are unworthy of our ingenuity. Cars, in the way we use them (making 82% of trips five miles or less by automobile) are a deeply inelegant solution to our transportation question. Look at the price we have chosen to pay for a little convenience: the pollution, the spills, the sprawl, the asphalt heat sinks, 40,000 killed and 3.5 million injured every year in crashes, the drain on personal finances, the wars and political jockeying for access to oil… the list goes on.

The car is an ingenious device, and motorized transportation certainly comes in handy. My job wouldn’t exist without it. I’m about to rent a truck to move my belongings 1200 miles away. If not for the car, day hiking would be impossible, given how far away the trailheads are. Until I get a work bike, buying dogfood or going to the laundromat means using a car. But for every person over the age of 16 to have their own? To use it a dozen times every day in 15 or 20 minute increments? It just doesn’t add up. The cost far exceeds the benefit.

We are an intelligent, crafty, curious species by design. That mass of grey jello inside your cranial vault is there to be used, and yet we have complacently accepted–and indeed embraced–technology that is killing us.

So maybe there’s another word I’d put on the list: right. I’m not talking about being “good”; this isn’t about sin or religion or heaven or hell. I’m talking about choice, what actions we choose and how they affect us and everything around us. There is no punishment for wrong action, only very clear consequence. And any rational person can look at the consequence of how we modernday Westerners live our lives and see that there is something fundamentally flawed in our choices.

I’m trying to set up a difficult distinction, and I’m not entirely sure it’s a clear or even valid one. But I think it’s important to get away from notions of doing things simply to avoid getting in trouble and instead choose correct actions simply for their own sake. A code, if you will.

(At 1:33–”The code of the warrior–you think it’s noble.” “No, I think it’s correct.”)

But see how quickly this gets heavy? Unwieldy, even? Ponderous and serious and, well, a little boring? Already I’m thinking I shouldn’t click “Publish” for this post, mainly because it’s starting to make me sound like a pompous, guilt-stricken, navel-gazing wet blanket. Consider:

The problem is big, and our choices, individually, have an exceedingly small impact.

It’s easy and in vogue right now to make oneself sound important or thoughtful or deep just by talking in serious tones about all this–which makes any conversation in this vein sound automatically just a little bit hollow.

Sincerity is always dicey. Though universally revered, no one actually wants to be Mother Theresa, and Pollyanna isn’t generally used as a flattering label. I suppose it’s easier to ridicule good behavior–then we can all feel a little better about not doing it.

But you know what? Today my coffeemaker is going to Goodwill, and the tea kettle and the Chemex will take its place. It wasn’t an environmental choice, though it touches on environmental considerations, and thus can be the entree into a much larger discussion. All in all, though, the net benefit of the change is negligible (after all, I’m still using it to brew beans from thousands of miles away). Mostly, it’s one small step to a less cluttered existence.

Call me crazy, but I think that sort of simplicity can save us. The simpler things get, the quieter they get. The quieter things get, the more space we have to be thoughtful, to be mindful. And mindful people, I believe, make better–more correct–choices. Comes with the territory.

So riding a bike or using a non-electric appliance won’t save the world. What they will do is give you a little shift in perspective–and from that new vantage point, you just might see a better way.