Unusually, in Austin last Sunday it snowed for hours. Gorgeous white and grey, very quiet day through the big sky windows my desk faces. (On the gallery page of my site, my tiny ancient Eeyore and his tiny good luck travel buddies are respectively alarmed and complacent at snow in Austin. The travel buddies have seen Chicago winters.)
After talking with my parents I ventured out for fresh air and quickly returned in for scrambled egg dinner (with blue cheese crumbles, oh-so good) in my warm, serene little apartment.
Discipline tells me I should write that second blog post on universal basic income and do some other work chores first. But…what’s on my mind tells me to write what’s on my mind. The serious writing, and the career chores, will get done.
I love my little nest (with finches on the balcony) for many reasons, but chief among those is its lack of clutter. When I was very ill during 2018 and 2019, Real Simple, the magazine of addictive listcicles, was an unexpected comfort.
Early in 2020 I became better and happily but suddenly moved back to Austin.
What came with me were a few books, all of my journals, photos, special keepsakes, (just some of) my clothing and shoes. (Oh and the cremains of my last two dogs, amusing an astonishingly friendly airport security worker as I passed through with them in my carry-on. It’s totally within the rules, just call ahead.)
I—and those things—stayed with an old friend over the summer of virus. I acquired two new jade plants, a succulent of-some-sort, and the bonsai crepe myrtle that I planted here to represent my own regeneration.
In October I moved to this quiet place, bringing those few things, adding a bed, desk, work chair, two bookshelves, two blue plates, two blue bowls, two water/wine glasses, one big salad bowl, one wooden mix spoon, a chopping knife, and a very cheap ($4.99!) set of IKEA flatware. Some also cheap but unexpectedly cozy IKEA linens too. As stuff goes, it’s all I need. (The functional closet, kitchen, shower, washer and dryer have been pretty OK too.)
So, I’m musing, but with what point?
I’m not affluent, but I’m also far from destitute. Still, I have the privilege of choosing simplicity as a lifestyle.
I’ve lived so well and never appreciated it until now. My parents gave me my own room (my brothers had to share theirs) in a big house on acres of land with nature’s abundance outside to explore. I spent my undergraduate years in a sorority house with a cook and “houseboys” (horrid term) who served our meals in a formal dining room. At Northwestern, I lived with roommates in an old Evanston apartment building with a 1920s feel. In Los Angeles, I paid $475 monthly for the cutest little studio apartment (in a great neighborhood) with not much more than hotplate and pull-out sofa, and absolutely loved it. With our own hands, my husband and I remade a run-down house in Austin, which became our son’s first home. Here, I’ve lived in two historic neighborhoods, where walking, running, swimming, and cycling are steps from the door and taken for granted.
I’m happy now to live and think without all the complications of mortgage, insurance, property taxes, house repairs, despicable yard work, car payments, more insurance, car repairs, child care, summer camp (love my kid immensely but the privilege of parenting also isn’t cheap), and yes, vet bills (also a privilege but not cheap). Don’t even get me started on this nation’s insane for-profit healthcare tiers of craziness.
I’m not special. I’m not writing of things that other people don’t also know.
But I do know that my now simple lifestyle is a privileged choice. It seems such a contradiction in a society stained with the heavy economic obligation imposed on all kinds of people, with fewer options, just trying to work their lives.
If I were to raise a topic so odd as voluntary simplicity with those living catch-as-catch-can, they’d be right to tell me to get real. I met a few of them while, at the think tank where I used to work, researching a project on the tough choices people on the economic edge face every day. That’s not a cliche. They live more complicated lives because they have to.
Before I was sick I’d never heard of Marie Kondo. Now I know who she is. She showed up in the warm bath of the Gilmore Girls movie which I watched while recuperating. Coincidentally, she’s in the New York Times today, launching her Container Store—another shrine to simplicity porn for the relatively well-off, myself guilty as charged—Collection.
Marie Kondo seems very likable, so no disrespect intended. And surely many people have become happier because they took her advice to shed what didn’t “bring them joy.” (Confession—I brought my nostalgic 1990s Chic Simple books (bought used) back with me to Texas, so I share the spirit.) In the spring I’ll return to Illinois, gladly to release from those dreadful storage units anything except what matters. And I’ll be grateful that I’ll be able to make my own decisions about what to shed and what to keep. More on that in Stuff Part Two, Tent Cities and Storage Blocks.
Dayna Finet 