Days 10, 11 & 12: Minimalism Game

Nov. 10th, 11th & 12th of The Game:  Clothing

I washed, dried and piled every piece of clothing I own on a table in the basement and sorted everything out by type. I thought this would take me a week to do, but instead it was done mostly on Sunday.

What I found is a confirmation of what I have been feeling lately - I don't need to buy anything new. I thought this process would take me the week, but found that I have pared down my clothing over the past year, and although it was still too much to keep track of, it was already down by 1/2.

After everything was sorted, I started by taking out everything ripped, wrong-sized, and anything I wore that I really didn't like - either style, fabric, color or how it fit.

I sorted summer, and put it away. Sorted winter and hung anything that could be layered or worn year round in the closet. Everything is organized, has a place to be put away and I like to wear everything I kept. I am leaving this open for six months - if I don't wear the things I kept by June, I will also donate them.

The piles of donations/trash are a combination of shirts, t-shirts, dresses, pants, accessories, pairs of socks, and undergarments.  Days 10, 11 & 12 add up to 33 items. With the previous jacket & sweater and shoe days (17 items) the grand total is 50 pieces trashed or donated out of my closet. Not sacrificing, not any kind of difficult letting go of anything...just the extras and unused. Someone else might be able to these things, because I clearly am not.

Days 8,  9, 10, 11 & 12 = 50 items

What I kept:

Everything - coats, sweaters, dress clothes & casual.

I use a 9 cube for storage of clothes that are not hung: Summer shorts & shirts (1) , t-shirts (1), summer pj's (1), winter pj's (1), undergarments (2), socks (1), gloves & scarves (1), sweats/sweatshirts (1)

I think a good measure for me is that if it can't fit in that cube, something has to go. I need a visual measurement like this to keep on track.

9 - cube storage for all clothes that aren't hung in the closet

The revelation? I wrote 2000 words for my novel today while I was home sick and resting. 2000 words! And I have hours left to write tonight...

I felt that with the letting go of each item, each pile, each vulnerability shared about the items...I created room somehow for creativity and the telling of the story.  So I have great incentive to continue on. At first I was trying just to reach the number on the day, and I still will - but I imagine that when I get to other parts of the house, the numbers will be met easily and in the end the house will hold only the things I use and need, and the story I have held onto for several years will be written.

And after that? There will be room for whatever is next...

Mental Sustainability

I spent four hours Sunday stripping leaves off branches and cutting branches into kindling.

Why? Because I could!

After spending week after week sitting still and not able to do anything in the yard or garden, I worked slowly, at a task that would not hurt me, at an enjoyable pace, and I discovered something about myself: this is what I could do every day.  Gardening, yard work, housekeeping, cooking, canning, all of it.  Every day.

In the past, when I thought of being sustainable – I would think of the basics: food, clothing, shelter, water, safety, etc.  When I sat for a while – I discovered that there is another aspect to sustainability that I didn’t fully understand:  Mental sustainability. There are things that are individual to each of us that we require to have a mental wellness.  For me:  the relationships around me of family, friends, neighbors, gardening and nature, contributing to a community, cultivating beauty and creativity, writing, music, seeing a value in the day to day work that I do and playing games and having fun.

For example, there is a happiness that occurs when I complete a task I enjoy:  huge stick pile + empty bucket + stripping the leaves and cutting up sticks = full bucket. Full bucket of kindling + Winter weather = fire starter for cooking and heat. The value of the small amounts of work equal a greater value in the end and result in comfort, heat and food for family and friends and a warm shelter during the storms, as well as a mental comfort and warmth that recharges me and helps me deal with the harshness that sometimes occurs in the world. There is something magical that happens around a hearth.

Another realization came to me this week.  Although there are some projects that need to be done around the house and garden, I need nothing. I was surprised to find that the mental wish list of random things has disappeared. I have enough.  I am not excluding the dream of one day owning more land and being able to have animals and a much larger garden. That is a family dream. For me, personally, I’m done. I have everything I need and, in fact, actually need less than I have.  The few things I do plan to buy in the next year are related to living with less and being sustainable. (bike, hiking shoes, some plants and gardening supplies, and books. Books to read and learn and pass on.)  In the past, when October hit, I would start the frenzy of holiday wish lists and shopping. I really love to give gifts and encourage people, but a lot of the time it seems to just add to a pile of things they already don’t have the time to use. I really enjoy giving and receiving gifts of consumable such as candles, wine, a meal, traveling together, something handmade. Something to create a memory and show another person they are remembered and loved. I am looking forward to being creative with these new ideas for the holidays this year. If we could only change our minds and habits, and instead give of ourselves and our time.

As I rode the bus to work today, I overheard a conversation between an older man and a younger mom with her child. Their discussion was about where they would be sleeping tonight. He would be behind a dumpster downtown, in a friend’s hallway, maybe a shelter, and the woman had a hotel room that she and her child were staying in for a little while to keep them off the streets.  Neither knew what they would be doing for the winter.

This conversation brought what matters most into very clear focus. The chaos of 8-5, which really means 7:15 -5:45 some days with the bus commute, traffic screaming around school buses, around corners and everything screaming around me, the pushing around of papers for 8 hours and the same chaotic trip home. Time passes quickly, without much meaning in a failing economy and goals that can’t be met.  I like my job and most of the people I work with, but at the end of the day – where is the full bucket? I am grateful to have work, when so many people don’t, but where is the cultivation of beauty and creativity?  The money I make is useful for providing for our family and things we need…but what if we just didn’t need all those things anymore? In the evenings I walk or sit in the garden and wish for a day of hard work that contributes to the world to make it better. We’re all in this together and we need each other and in the evenings I am often too tired to spend time the way I would choose. I do my best to make the experience of my job useful to the accounts I deal with and I believe that I get paid to contribute something of value to the company every day. I do this for myself, so I can look at myself in a mirror and be satisfied that – even if I am not living what I dream  – I am giving my best to this day and what I am doing now. I know now that this way is not mentally or physically sustainable for me.

However, the wind is changing, the fog is lifting, and my mind is clearer than it has ever been.

There is something in motion here that will take me to a new place. It already has begun to change me. I don’t know the exact path or where it will lead, but the direction I am facing now looks very different and it feels like home...

and home is a great place to be...

A Small Harvest

To make a deep mental path....

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, 

so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. 

To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. 

To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over 

the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."
~Thoreau

It's 85 degrees outside and this taste of Summer is intoxicating. It's what I needed to spur on the personal projects I have been thinking about. The garden is always there with its list of things that need to be done - at least for this first year or so, but after that, it won't require as much structural work...so what will I spend my time on then? I cannot put aside life to become identified with the garden, I am gardening to become more in touch with this life. This is so much more for me than planting a garden. It is a process of discovering what I value, what my beliefs are, what inspires me, who is on this journey with me in a positive way, and who is not. It's about investing my efforts where I work - to the end of being able to be at home more and enjoy this space that is being created in me and around me.

At any given moment - when inspiration hits - I have a few projects that I am working on. Guitar lessons, writing songs, making jewelry, downsizing and de-cluttering my home (and myself), continuing to develop the story I am writing, the garden plans, cooking and being creative with the wood cookstove, and this blog to document the trip.

I have some short term projects - putting together a 6 x 3 freestanding greenhouse to start seeds. Sawing up the remainder of sticks into kindling sized pieces to dry out - weeding out clothes, etc. to bring to consignment, etc. etc.

What has changed is my approach. I work on something, take a rest, move to something else, take a rest. Resting involves music, gaming, writing, sitting outside in the garden, spending time with family and friends. This pace allows me enough time to get to everything that *needs* to be done (clean clothes, dishes, and so on) and it allows enough time to get to the *wants* (spending time with people, different projects, etc.) but the resting also creates this space that has become miraculous for me. Space enough to just be and I find that when there is room in my day to sit and be still  - the ideas come fast and furious - such as outlining a complete story - designing a front garden - figuring a creative way to spend time with family and friends - or something as simple as an answer to "what are we going to do with that pile of logs near the fence?".

The logs became something useful - a garden border to keep the dog out (at least until things grow in) and a place where we (and others) can sit and rest - as well as defining the area where we generally work on wood, chopping, kindling, mulching, etc.

Log pile near the fence and mulch pile in the driveway.
All that is left of the Catalpa and Mulberry that we took down...

The log border (seats) and mulched path 

Mulched path (cardboard and straw) and the beds of peas.
Bark paths between the beds and the herb spiral.

There is also this realization - this craving of community that exists inside of me, and of everyone, I would imagine. We are so disconnected in this world and lonely in large groups of people who are in constant contact with us through technology. I imagine that we all need each other in a greater way than we even realize. It brings me great joy to know that there are people who understand the happiness of putting your hands in the soil and waiting until that first green appears, or that moment when the perfect phrase in a song or story comes together or the moment when you see your child or family member succeed or overcome in life. The benefit of technology is that we have access to people we may not have ever met in the past and the whole world has the potential to become part of our personal community. We also have the opportunity in a greater way to share ideas and information...as long as we remember to share our personal stories and make connections that are real.  I am finding that my physical neighbors have so much to teach me - about life - about myself.  It seems there is always something to learn...today I am grateful for each of the people who have been part of my life, for however long,  and make it such a rich and amazing story...

I love the view from my window...it changes every day!