Flashback: Voluntary Simplicity

In October 2010, I wrote this:

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Voluntary simplicity

I began this post thinking to share an interesting archive article from O magazine, sent to me by friend Terry,  called  Back to Basics: Living With Voluntary Simplicity. There was fodder in there for a discussion about the "business" of simplicity. I imagine I'll get to that another day. 

This is because, in thinking of voluntary simplicity, I remembered Jessica Terrell.

When she served as the trails coordinator for the state of Missouri, Jessica and I worked together on a couple of projects. She modeled voluntary simplicity.

Jessica Terrell. Photo from www.MoBikeFed.org.

You only meet a handful of people like Jessica in your lifetime. She had a positive impact on others simply by walking her talk of living lightly on the earth while embracing its beauty. Good sense of humor. Beautiful smile. Gentle air. Excellent writer. Adventurous. Hard worker. She liked to take at least one trip a year with her mother, who lives in Ohio. She farmed a plot in our town's community garden across the river.
Jessica wanted to live small materially, but big in other ways. (She won a grueling multiple-week, motorcycling competition shortly after moving west.) It was Jessica who introduced me to the world of Tiny Houses. Living in a tiny house was one of her goals.

Once, I met Jessica at another colleague's house for a meeting. Jessica was emptying some items out of her car to give to our colleague. I asked about it, and Jessica replied that she'd been in the process of giving away many of her things. To live smaller. She offered me her one-person tent, which I took (and only recently passed along to Brother4.)

One of Jessica's professional goals was to move from Missouri to New Mexico or Arizona, and work in trails there. When she shared this with me, she calculated it would be five or more years before an opening and her professional "cred" would align to make this happen. It turns out that both occurred soon after, and Jessica moved from Missouri to Santa Fe in 2006.

You'll have noticed that I refer to Jessica in the past tense. This is because she died in a collision with a tractor-trailer on a wintry day in 2008. She was only 30.

Jessica was on her way to another town where she would give a workshop related to trails. Earlier that day, in her office, she talked enthusiastically with a co-worker about a book of essays she was reading, written by Barbara Kingsolver.

Another person who knew Jessica told me she called herself a "vagabond for beauty."

In 2002, Jessica participated in the Public Lands Journey. I'd read Jessica's fine journal entries before, but after she died, I revisited them, and this one stuck out for me. It embodies simplicity.

My Favorite Day  

… I know that when I return home, friends, and family will be asking “So what was your absolute favorite place on the whole trek?”

What will I tell them? I will start out by saying that every day inevitably seemed better than the last. “Seemed” is the key word, you must realize.

If I were to mix up all the days of the trek and do it all over again, each new day would never cease to “seem” better than the one before it!

So I have come to the conclusion that TODAY will always be my favorite.

The dawn of each new day has and will continue to reveal to me things that have never before occurred, and never will occur again, whether it be a beautiful cloud formation over a particular mountain, the call of elk on a cool morning in a national forest, or even the way rocks glitter in the brightness of the afternoon sun.

Jessica Terrell

1977-2008

And Even More on Tiny Living

Room at Yeni Hostel, Istanbul

Home, squeezed home: Living in a 200-square-foot space was in yesterday's Washington Post. It also points readers to a good article here: White Paper: The Small Spaces Trend. 

I've visited this topic several times because it calls to me: 

Voluntary Simplicity

 

Tiny Living

 

More on Tiny Living

This year, I happen to be living in a 832-foot apartment in Alamogordo. The space is so luxurious, I can't tell you.

 

But just as satisfying have been much smaller spaces. When I was in Addis, I met an Italian professor, teaching in Addis, who lived in the Taitu Hotel in a spacious room with a balcony. There was a sink in the room, but he had to go out and down the hall for a toilet or shower. I loved that room - just a huge square space with tall windows (if I recall correctly) and lots of light. And the balcony! Wood-plank floor, waist-high wall, overlooking the hotel/hostel's grassy cafe.

My rooms in Dubai and Istanbul - also livable for a long period, albeit tiny.

The trick for making tiny spaces truly livable seems to me to be the accessibility to usable outdoor space, whether that's, literally, a space just outside one's door where one can relax in some comfort (i.e., not in a climate that is too cold for much of the year), or figuratively, with an affordable cafe society or nearby public parks and the like. And certainly there needs to be easy access to food supplies, to eliminate the need for storage space to keep the food. (Or live in a location where it's more economical to order out than to make one's own meals.) 

Some issues I don't see talked about in re: the urban, tiny-living trend: 

People still drink water and generate human waste, regardless of the size of their residences. If tiny urban living really takes off, resulting in a significant increase in the population per foot of a city, what is the net ecological and economic impact? 

Should every metropolitan area encourage tiny housing, if the likely net outcome is increased population, such as cities that already consume too much water for their indigenous climate or rely too heavily on climate-control energy sources? Desert cities such as Phoenix, Tucson, or Las Vegas, for example.   

With a greater concentration of tiny houses in urban environments, shouldn't there be a conversation about built-in green spaces for each tiny-house enclave? Otherwise, when it comes to ecological impacts or quality-of-life points, how would a cluster of tiny houses without green space be much different than slapping up an apartment building? Just a false entitlement to smugness about one's carbon footprint, I think. 

The Volume of Space

Borrowed space  

For the last two years, I lived as a perpetual guest in Missouri and Rustavi, Georgia. I lived in other people's space, among their things. I was very lucky with the beneficence of my hostesses and with the attractiveness of their environs.   





My space

Now, for at least a year, I'm living in my own space again.

And by "space" I mean that in two contexts: 1) my own place; and 2) several rooms that are mostly empty. 

Volume of space

Over time, I'll need to add a few pieces of furniture to my place. A guest bed. A couple of chairs. A table.

But for now, the airy volumes of space, the unobstructed expanse of floor, and the blankness of the ivory walls and ceiling feel soothing. They are a freedom.

I do have color in my line of sight, but it is bound neatly by frames.  My Jim Logan poster. My Pasenko Band poster. The french doors frame the green backyard, through which I often see, in the afternoon, a trio of black cats loiter beneath the tree. 
    

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the late architect, Paul Rudolph's, designs, but this quote about and by Mr. Rudolph resonates, taken from The Paul Rudolph Foundation blog: 

 Paul Rudolph, the Carl Jung of architects, believed that architecture was basically about manipulating space, light, proportion, texture and material to fulfil the psychological needs of the occupants.

Famously, he said, “People, if they think about architecture at all, usually think in terms of materials.

While that’s important, it’s not the thing that determines the psychology of the building. It’s really the compression and release of space, the lighting of that space and the progression of one space to another.”

As I appreciate the beauty of my volumes of space, I can't help but think of a bad example of space design. It's a state office building in Jefferson City, called the Howerton Building. It's a big empty box, for the most part, but its volume of space is merely a warehouse for human capital, not a space that respects humanness. The interior is crammed with cube farms and long, claustrophobic, empty corridors that make you feel like you're on a spaceship. The exterior lacks only coiled barbed wire atop a chain link fence to distinguish it from a prison. When you learn that the "human capital" within is responsible for providing social services, it's even sadder - the enervating physical environment making a challenging job even more difficult.  

Howerton Building, Jefferson City, Missouri

Not sure how I digressed over to the dark side of the volume of space. Maybe because when I have volumes of space that promote feelings such as liberty, serenity, and creativity, it makes me angry about designs that dehumanize a building's inhabitants.

So to get back on a happy note: this rootless person feels good about my airy space - it belongs to me and yet it doesn't weigh me down.

More on Tiny Living

CNN has an intriguing article here, Tiny Homes Hit the Big City.

I've written about this before:

Tiny Living

Voluntary Simplicity

And, currently, my tiny allotment of material goods has moved out of a closet and into my car.

New York City's Mayor Bloomsburg wants to encourage the establishment of mico-apartments. Homes that are 300 square feet or less, including the kitchen and bathroom.

On one hand, I think, yeah, cool. More people can afford to live in the city. Smaller carbon footprint and all that. There's probably another side effect that helps the city economy - when your place is so small, you may find yourself going out more, thus spending more. In other words, reallocating your disposable income in a way that results in wider distribution than if you spent far more of your income just on rent and utilities. 

On the other hand, I think of the goat versus cow story told to me by an Ethiopian academic many years ago: As land was handed down to sons by their peasant fathers, their descendants - subsistence farmers - owned smaller and smaller pieces of land as it was divvied up with their brothers. The plots of land were becoming too small to support cattle, the traditional livestock of choice. Some smart people, perhaps with USAID, had a great idea: Encourage peasants to switch from cows to goats. The goats provide meat and milk like cows, but take up less space and consume less resources.

Upon hearing this, I said, "Hey, that is a great idea. Creative!"

And the Ethiopian academic said, "No, it's forcing the peasants to do all the changing. The oligarchy doesn't have to change anything. They keep their wealth and vast properties. What needs to happen is land reform."

So I like the idea of going smaller with our living spaces. But I wonder how big Mayor Bloomsburg's house is.  
 

... And More Released

Found a nice home for one of my framed pictures. It will soon reside in Brooklyn, NY.

It will share a home with another book I just let go, one of the 10 best books ever written in the history of humankind --> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

42. 

Still Letting Go of Stuff

In the past week, I've released:

• Dress
• Shoes
• Blouse
• Tunnel in the Sky, a Robert Heinlein classic ("Watch out for the stobor.")
• Wheeled, plastic stack of drawers
• Two artisan-made dolls from Peru and Guatemala

Conveniently, I will have emptied these items by the time I leave:

• Bottle of cologne
• Jar of moisturizing cream

I'm scanning a great book, now out of print, that I was loath to give away, but have no physical space for: Mediation and Facilitation Training Manual (Third Edition), by the Mennonite Conciliation Service.

I will leave behind me:

• My car; 
• My camping gear, which I'll store in my car; and 
• Some odds and ends that will fit into one-third of a small closet.

So, not quite at my two-carry-on-bags-and-a-backpack goal, but getting there!

Tiny Living

Credit: Tumbleweed Tiny House blog

A while back, I talked about Jessica Terrell, a colleague who walked her talk about living simply. She dreamed of one day living in a tiny house like this.

Tumbleweed Tiny Houses has a cool idea - they track Tiny House inhabitants for one year in Living Tiny 365. Here and here are Zoey's stories.













Taking the concept further are pedal-powered tiny houses. I got this link from this very cool blog, This Tiny House, which is about way more than "just" tiny houses. The motto: "Be well, travel light, and give it all away."

 

On Minimalism

I touched on the topic of minimalism in an earlier post called Voluntary Simplicity. 

A guy named Jeroon defines minimalism (from the perspective of art, architecture, industrial design) thus:

Minimalism is the removal of all non-relevant elements in order to reveal the essence.

He pared this down from a larger conversation on the subject here.

Cafe, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Serena, The Everyday Minimalist, explains what being a minimalist means to her here:

A Minimalist’s Train of Thought

Less money spent means more money saved

More money saved means the longer you can live in financial peace and security

Financial peace and security comes from owning less

Less stuff owned means less to carry around, move or have to travel with

Less responsibility for your stuff also means less maintenance and more time

The more time you have, the more relaxed you will feel

The more relaxed you are, the less you will care about stuff

If you care less about stuff, it means you’ll care less about image

If you care less about image, you will care more about experiences and memories

If you care more about experiences and memories, you will be happier with less

If you are happier with less, you’ll never want or need for more

The less you want or need for more, the more you will feel free

- The Everyday Minimalist

Her story reminds me of a conversation I just had last week with someone whose niece travels so much on business, she has no need for an apartment. Therefore no need for utility bills. I'm not sure if she even owns her own vehicle. Most meals are reimbursed by her employer. Furthermore, the company flies her back home (to her extended family's base) every month. I think she's an accountant. Will she do that forever? Not likely, but for now, it's fun and probably enables her to save buckets of money for the future.

Chucking it all

How - or how not - to do it:

How to Be a Bum, by Tom Chartier (formerly of The Rotters) (and this is as good a time as any to note that just because I link to a site does not mean I endorse the views of that site or its host sites)

On Chucking It All: How Downshifting To A Windswept Scottish Island Did Absolutely Nothing to Improve My Life, by Max Scratchman, in The Independent

Voluntary simplicity

I began this post thinking to share an interesting archive article from O magazine, sent to me by friend Terry,  called  Back to Basics: Living With Voluntary Simplicity. There was fodder in there for a discussion about the "business" of simplicity. I imagine I'll get to that another day. 

This is because, in thinking of voluntary simplicity, I remembered Jessica Terrell.

When she served as the trails coordinator for the state of Missouri, Jessica and I worked together on a couple of projects. She modeled voluntary simplicity.

 

You only meet a handful of people like Jessica in your lifetime. She had a positive impact on others simply by walking her talk of living lightly on the earth while embracing its beauty. Good sense of humor. Beautiful smile. Gentle air. Excellent writer. Adventurous. Hard worker. She liked to take at least one trip a year with her mother, who lives in Ohio. She farmed a plot in our town's community garden across the river.
Jessica wanted to live small materially, but big in other ways. (She won a grueling multiple-week, motorcycling competition shortly after moving west.) It was Jessica who introduced me to the world of Tiny Houses. Living in a tiny house was one of her goals.

Once, I met Jessica at another colleague's house for a meeting. Jessica was emptying some items out of her car to give to our colleague. I asked about it, and Jessica replied that she'd been in the process of giving away many of her things. To live smaller. She offered me her one-person tent, which I took (and only recently passed along to Brother4.)

One of Jessica's professional goals was to move from Missouri to New Mexico or Arizona, and work in trails there. When she shared this with me, she calculated it would be five or more years before an opening and her professional "cred" would align to make this happen. It turns out that both occurred soon after, and Jessica moved from Missouri to Santa Fe in 2006.

You'll have noticed that I refer to Jessica in the past tense. This is because she died in a collision with a tractor-trailer on a wintry day in 2008. She was only 30.

Jessica was on her way to another town where she would give a workshop related to trails. Earlier that day, in her office, she talked enthusiastically with a co-worker about a book of essays she was reading, written by Barbara Kingsolver.

Another person who knew Jessica told me she called herself a "vagabond for beauty."

In 2002, Jessica participated in the Public Lands Journey. I'd read Jessica's fine journal entries before, but after she died, I revisited them, and this one stuck out for me. It embodies simplicity.

My Favorite Day

… I know that when I return home, friends, and family will be asking “So what was your absolute favorite place on the whole trek?”

What will I tell them? I will start out by saying that every day inevitably seemed better than the last. “Seemed” is the key word, you must realize.

If I were to mix up all the days of the trek and do it all over again, each new day would never cease to “seem” better than the one before it!

So I have come to the conclusion that TODAY will always be my favorite.

The dawn of each new day has and will continue to reveal to me things that have never before occurred, and never will occur again, whether it be a beautiful cloud formation over a particular mountain, the call of elk on a cool morning in a national forest, or even the way rocks glitter in the brightness of the afternoon sun.

Jessica Terrell

1977-2008

Photo from www.MoBikeFed.org.