Remembering to Be Grateful

There are three stages of a woman’s life: maiden, mother, and crone. I am in the latter category and I’m not sorry a bit. I wish the body worked a bit better, but I’ve no one to blame but myself. Wisdom really does come with age. As a maiden I thought I knew it all already, as a mother I despaired of every knowing what my grandmothers knew. As a crone, I know I don’t know it all, but I’m working on it.

Rereading Sarah Breathnach's Simple Abundance each year is a nice way of reminding myself to bring into my life the elements that enrich my soul. In these times of economic uncertainty it is good to remember that most of us already have everything we need to be happy if we are mindful to bring it into our lives: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, and beauty.

Remembering to practice gratitude is key to being happy. It may seem difficult to feel gratitude at this time of recession and upheaval. My husband is going to lose his job. I am grateful that he has a pension from his previous employer, the federal government. He will be twice the husband with half the salary, but we are more fortunate than those who are a paycheck away from homelessness. As daughter-in-law Ana said, “We have each other. We’ll be all right.”

In inventorying that which I have to be grateful for, besides reasonably secure income which is only a measure of how society views us, not how we view ourselves, I have my family and friends. I cannot think of anything more important for a woman than female friends. I am blessed with wonderful women in my life in the form of an aunt, cousins as dear as sisters, and very special friends.

Life long friend Nikki

I was not always so blessed. While I’ve always had wonderful female relatives and a life-long friend, there was a time when I lived far away from all of them, when my world shrank to just my immediate family and when I needed friends most there were none at hand. I will never so isolate myself again. It may be that you can meet a friend from the past and take up wherever you left off, but friendships, as in all relationships, are like gardens and need tending. When we don’t they get weedy. Above is a picture of my daughter Amy with dear friend Marion.

daughter-in-law Ana and wonderful friend Jo

So today, as I go about bringing some order and simplicity to my environment, I will remember to be grateful for a place to live and those things (mostly my dear books), but also for having so many wonderful women in my life. Out of practicing these things I know will come harmony and beauty along with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Voluntary Simplicity

Confessions of a Packrat

The notion of “voluntary simplicity” in connection with me seems crazy. Simplicity is not one of my characteristics. Packrat is. I come from a long line of packrats. My mother has a T-shirt that says “I’m not a packrat, I’m a collector.” We have to be forgiven. My mother was raised in a house that not only contained her parents’ trumpery, but her grandmother’s as well.

Many afternoons were spent by my cousin and me exploring our grandmother’s basement and the trunks that contained generations of interesting clothing and artifacts. Grandma Mills gave us leave to poke around all we liked except for the trunk which contained the belongings of our mothers’ brother. The uncle we would never know in this life had been thrown from a horse in front of a truck and killed at age thirteen and obtained instant sainthood in the minds of our grandparents and to the confusion of his preschool age sisters. I am now the keeper of many of Austin’s things, including a cigar box almost identical even to the contents to the one in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, and I’m not about to get rid of them, but I do consider myself a recovering packrat.

I’m not as bad as some family members who could probably benefit from medication. One relative sobbed over lunch one day, “My neighbor died and her husband had a dumpster in front of the house before I knew what was happening. I just know Pat will do that if I die first.” You think? This woman has trails through her house of stuff. Not only do I not want to be her, I want to create a life that is less cluttered physically and emotionally. We hang on to things for a variety of reasons. I’m trying to let go.

Before the lazy days of Summer were abruptly ended by the realization that we were free falling into an economic recession, I had obtained a copy of Dominguez & Robin’s Your Money or Your Life. Reading it and getting serious about creating new patterns of living became imperative. The philosophy behind the book and what has become the voluntary simplicity movement is not a budget, but a different way of consuming and living and seems to be the perfect reading material for a season generally given up to conspicuous consumption and perfect for making New Year’s resolutions.

Your Money or Your Life is about figuring out what “enough” looks like. I’m working on that. I have already figured out what “too much” looks like. It is about living simply so that other may simply live and walking gently through this life and Earth.

With snow and ice slowing down the pace of life I have been able to focus on organizing some things with an eye to paring down my entirely too large pile and beginning afresh with a New Year. It is a mighty task I’ve set upon for I’ve been collecting for more years than I would like to admit to. It may well take me all of 2009 to get to where I’d like to be, but it’s the journey that counts so I keep plugging away at eliminating things and accounting for every penny of my money. This time next year I hope to have less stuff and more financial independence.

You’ll have to excuse me now. I’ve got to get back to creating the life I want to have.

Literally weeks before the stock market beginning its downward free fall this year I had ordered a used copy of Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Voluntary Simplicity is something I had a rudimentary knowledge of and thrift and I are old friends, but I have entirely too much stuff even if most of it was acquired from thrift stores and garage sales. My New Year’s resolution will be not only to see how little money I can spend and how much debt we can pay off, but to pare down our pile. We could not sell our house and move to the coast right now if the economy was great. There’s no way that all our junk that fills a five bedroom suburban house will fit into a three bedroom country Victoria. Besides, I do not want to leave a mountain of things for my children to dispose of someday. Instead of having them get a dumpster, I am making trips to Goodwill. Figuring out what “enough” looks like is a central theme in Your Money.

So I’m beginning my journey already. Because my daughter recently got some new clothing this morning I began going through her dresser and closets, pulling out things she hasn’t worn in ages and bagged them up for Goodwill. We are planning a chicken coop and a vegetable garden for Spring which should add to our table and entertainment.

I will be reporting on my successes and failures and I invite your stories about what you’re doing to save money and simplify your life.