choosing a smaller life
it might be a more powerful way to live
Through my window, I can hear my neighbor listening to jazz.
The molasses voice of a singer with nothing but time floats on the air.
It’s the golden hour.
Weightless, delicate bugs glow with soft halos in the waning sunshine as they loop-to-loop their lazy patterns in the sky.
This year I am paying the most attention I ever have.
The Lilacs and Lily of the Valley are taking their turn on the stage of spring blooms.
The Irises and the Peonies are poised in the wings, preparing to make their entrance.
My world has become much smaller and less flashy than it was a few years ago.
Instead of a luxury condo in Tulum, I share a funky apartment in a triplex in Seattle.
Instead of record profit, I earn a consistent, humble wage.
Instead of posting marketing-driven brags, I write essays about flowers and grief.
This smaller life carries so much more peace and awe in its moments than the old one did.
At the dentist today, the poor hygienist asked me how I was doing and I gave an odd, halting response along the lines of…
“Good. I don’t know. Complex? Mixed? Big life and regular life all kind of happening at the same time. But good. ”
It’s one of the most loaded questions. Have you noticed?
“How are you?”
Whenever someone asks, the real answer never fits into a single sentence.
One day I’m good, while my mind is tired, my work is fulfilling, but I am overwhelmed with things like paying taxes, finding my watch, and making sure there is food in the fridge.
Another day I am blue, grieving the violence in the world, but I am feeling like I am falling in love with my partner all over again, and the trees are a riot of color and intoxicating perfume.
And still, on another day, I’ll be witnessing my health laboring, while reading an exceptional science fiction novel, gawking over the tiny leaves sprouting up in my garden patches, and being impatient with the dog.
It’s all happening all the time. This wild, unwaveringly interesting fabric of Life.
I no longer desire to be excellent at my past times.
I only long to be present and enjoy them.
I want to make things well that I am proud of, and share them with people I love as well as with strangers who value delight and slow living.
There is rebellion in it. A silent revolt against consumerism, exploitation, and political polarization. It’s a quiet refusal to be a puppet or a pawn because I’m too busy being right here right now.
I’m too busy connecting authentically and curiously with my neighbors.
I’m too busy knitting a baby blanket for someone yet to arrive.
I’m too busy working to hold my community as able to grow into a more resilient, accepting, compassionate future.
I’m too busy creating opportunities for others to share their art.
I’m too busy making my own.
I’m opting into the rigamarole of celebrating worms in my soil and sweet, stolen notes carried on the breeze of someone serenading about something bygone.
Promotions:
Please share this newsletter somewhere. In a text. In an email. On social. Every time one of you shares it, another person or two sign up. Ideas are exchanged. Art is shared. Connection and different thinking are made important. Thank you for supporting me and for supporting art!
Small Gifts:
If you haven’t yet, read or listened to Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman. It’s exceptional. I cried, I cheered, I got worked up, and I learned important things about myself and speaking up to power.
Two cool audiobook resources. The first one is Libby, an app where you can borrow audiobooks for free through your local library. Don’t have a library card? No worries, you can sign up for one right in the app!
The other is Libro.FM. An app that costs the same amount as Audible BUT money goes to an independent bookstore of your choosing AND you can put your account on hold when you need to for however long you need to. Vote with your dollars hot stuff!
If you like comedy, please go treat yourself to Jenny Slate’s comedy special - Stage Fright. It is funny and odd and deeply charming!
For that matter, you should also watch Mae Martin’s show Feel Good. It is intelligent, absurd, honest, hilarious, and dynamically touching.
I didn’t drink for 3 years leading up to the pandemic quarantine, but in isolation drinking weaseled its way back into my life. I’ve been struggling with my relationship to alcohol lately and I’ve decided to embrace sobriety. I’m over the inflammation that makes my spine and hips and fingers and legs ache. The toll it takes on my sleep and energy. The money it costs for something that doesn’t contribute to my health or happiness. The way it predictably makes me feel blue - even despondent - the next day. In service to this desire, I have texted all my closest loved ones to ask for their support. I went to the local cookbook bookstore - Book Larder - and bought myself a shrub recipe book so that I can still enjoy the ritual, and sense of potion making and witchiness. And I’m filling my head with stories and motivation to choose what I know makes sustainably me feel happy and alive. This episode today was especially supportive and educational:
This week’s song. May it nourish you and make you feel like sunshine sits in your bones.
Until (probably) next week ~ Theora