Needs and Wants

Long before I moved out of the city I knew I wanted to get back closer to the life that I'd had as a child. Even though I ran away from it as fast as I could when given the opportunity. Life in the almost country in Indiana, next door to a dairy and farm was as much as a child of my era could possibly be expected to endure. No friends from school nearby, miles from any activities, and to relieve the boredom, my nose in a book most of the time. The cause of my dissatisfaction I now see was not so much the life itself but the "possible" and "desirable" life that was in magazines and especially on what was still a relatively new and highly influential medium - television.

Even in black and white (bore-ing) the lives that people led there were more interesting and faster paced than mine. And when we took the only family trip to California when I was nine, the deal was sealed! I wouldn't stand for the hokey, red-necky life of Southern Indiana any more. I would head to the city! I asked to be sent to boarding school in the fall following that vacation, knowing full well I was quite grown up enough, but my parents wisely declined. I was admittedly old for my age; no choice being an only child.

But looking back on the life my parents lived - without being too sentimental because it certainly wasn't perfect - it seems that they had what everyone wants today: time. Whether or not they used it wisely is another matter, one of personal choice I suppose. But they had it. They had weekends when few people worked and that looked very different than weekdays. They had connection to the seasons in a way that didn't require advertising to remind them that there were only 200 shopping days til Christmas. They had had things they did with their hands to pass the time that resulted in completed projects - some we ate, some I wore, some (the remodeled kitchen and bathroom) were still functioning when Daddy moved out of the house decades after their completion. They enjoyed the projects they did and took pride in their permanence, rather than needing to be constantly "updating" with the latest and shiniest new things. They had the time to repair what broke and mend what tore. Only when the item was completely beyond redemption did it get replaced. Clothes even had a second life as "work clothes" or in the end, the "rag bag." My parent understood and taught me the difference between "need" and "want." They unfailingly met "needs" and occasionally celebrated and indulged in "wants" making them an even sweeter experience. Absence does make the heart grow fonder; "special" today most frequently means what is on offer for lunch or on sale rather than than a long-awaited, much desired experience or item.

I tried for several decides to leave that upbringing far behind...but it was hardwired. I could turn down the volume but never turn it off. The slow song of living simply (long before Martha Stewart made an empire of it) and deferring wants to focus on needs was always in the background. As was a voice telling me to keep a sharp eye not to confuse the two. Although in many ways my life doesn't look anything like my parents' lives, it is fundamentally the same. I have just enough, am  frugal and at peace with not keeping up with the Jones in any way that I can see. With all its peculiarities, my life is just what I need, and want. What more could I ask?

There has been a lot to write about since my last post. Apparently the spirit hasn't moved me.

Since April 3 my brother was buried,  a good friend began her cancer treatment and another, more recently met friend died of cancer. It has not been a happy time. Yet life IS good. With all its sadness and frustration. All its disappointments and low blows. Those need to be felt; to be experienced and not stuffed down, dismissed or medicated away. They are life. They are real.

Since April 3 I've also reconnected with a colleague from the past, enjoyed getting to know new friends and begun the now-annual living out of part of the dream that motivated my move here; planting a vegetable garden. Such simple things mean so much to me; is it age? Is it accepting who I really am and giving up trying to be something someone else wants me to be? I need less and less yet I don't feel I suffer from any lack of material things.

Another long-time friend has a yen to travel and has been all over the world. She continues to take every opportunity (it seems to me) to go somewhere else.  I've traveled some - even with her - and I envy (perhaps too strong a word) her the experiences she's had, yet I find I just want to be home. At home, just like my parents lived. For years I looked down on that as being so confining and provincial. Yet home IS where my heart is. Family IS those people who understand and accept me, wherever I find them. The time away from home visiting friends or working is enjoyable and occasionally profitable, yet, after a time, I am eager to head back home.

Like Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz as she clicked those Ruby Slippers together to return there, "there's no place like home." Maybe I will regret not having traveled more. Maybe. I guess everyone has to regret something...

Another "aha!" moment

A new friend stopped in last night on her way to her get-away home here in Michigan. It was a lovely spring evening - warm enough to sit on the deck for a while - and we chatted about this and that as the work week came to a close and the sun went down.

One of the topics touched on was my interest in a small house in my friend's town. I'd looked at it months back because I was itchy again to move to what was more in line with the "there" I was looking for nearly seven years ago when I left the Chicago area. A place where I would fit, feel at home and bloom. But decided not to risk trying to sell my current loft in a down market. Prudent, I told myself. About six weeks ago I heard it had been offered for short sale. Too bad, I thought, the owners must really be in trouble. Maybe I could afford it now, but no, can't own two homes. Not prudent. Then just last weekend, I was driving by the house and saw something posted on the front door. I pulled in the driveway and walked up to the door. A foreclosure notice; the home was now a HUD property. Wow, I thought, that's really too bad. Those owners must be in a world of hurt. And again the little voice said, I'll bet this place is really cheap now! But no, not prudent. Owning two homes is crazy when you are consciously choosing a very limited income way to live. Crazy, stop thinking about it.

Back to the conversation...my friend said she  hoped she didn't offend me and that while she loved my current home (this was her first visit), she really saw me in the other house. Said it suited me; that she saw me there. I quickly countered that while it was a lovely home and certainly the land had been a dream I'd held, that when I saw myself there I saw myself as 30 years old, but that sadly I'm not going to turn 30 my next birthday, but something that is a  multiple of it. That a house requires much more work than a condo. And while these words were coming out of my mouth, I realized that what I was really saying had nothing to do with money directly. It had everything to do with a way of thinking that was limiting me. A way of thinking that limited my parents and kept them from doing things they wanted to when they could have. Not wildly reckless things, but things that would have made them smile and given them memories. Like my father taking a job in Chicago when his company wanted to transfer him (he ended up in the same job, hating it his entire career) or the family taking vacations (we took one vacation while I was a child and I  know my mother had traveled a great deal before she married my father.) Of course, my parents smiled and had memories, but you know what I mean....I'm talking about their foregoing what someone recently called "re-liveable moments". And here I was, thinking I was being financially prudent when I was avoiding something that might be just such a reliveable moment. How smart was that? How often had I misunderstood my own intentions and limited myself unnecessarily?

I'm once again reminded that blooming where you are planted is not only about a place. You can be planted in a mindset too. And like any garden, a mindset needs tending too. I need to do a bit more weeding, to clear out misperceptions that are holding me back. And I need to enrich my mind garden with some ideas or dreams. Rather than focus unnecessarily on limits and what isn't possible, as my friend said describing her own life, my "aha" was that I need to "figure it out" as I go; not live tomorrow today or get stuck in yesterday. Yes, I am getting older, but I'm not "older" yet. Blooming where I'm planted means I need to correct mistakes, celebrate successes and smile and remember how I did both...

Bring Back Special (or keep it where it exists...)

It's occurred to me more than once that I miss the sense of something being "special" that I grew up with. That thing or experience that was only available infrequently and whose appearance would create excitement. And the anticipation of it's arrival was almost as pleasant as the thing or experience itself. In my family one such special thing was Coke and 7-Up.

Suppliers or vendors to my the company where my father worked as a bookkeeper would send holiday gifts to him. I suppose it was to thank him for sending their checks promptly. I never really thought about why he would bring home the gifts. There were hams and towels (yes, bath towel sets) and more. But the one I appreciated the most was the company that sent a case of 12 oz bottles (green glass of course) of Coca-Cola and another case of 7-Up. These were as sure a sign of the Christmas season as the lights on the street or the tree in the living room. 

Once a year I indulged in drinking soft drinks that were never in the house other times. Or if they were I didn't know about it. Having a glass of Coke was as much a treat as opening gifts on Christmas eve. I would open bottles for my parents to pour glasses for the aunts and uncles who visited then but not during the year. Or to add to the occasional mixed drink that called for them. And my mother would make a wonderful 7-Up cake. The cases of Coke and 7-Up meant that visits were coming; that a turkey dinner wasn't far off and that the year was coming to a close. All these special memories just from two cases of soft drinks. The gifts went on until he retired...more than 15 years that I remember and possibly longer. 

Today I can have a Coke whenever I want. Wherever I want. It's nothing special. And more's the pity. Few things seem to really be special in a world of worldwide brands and franchises. Of sameness and uniformity. Maybe that's why the idea of maintaining the unique character of this place where I've elected to plant myself is so much a part of my thinking. Keeping the specialness of this "here" and not looking to yet another "there". I do worry though. It seems that to many people it is comforting to see the same things no matter where they go. And putting them in special places when they are not there....so that the place becomes nothing special. 

Technology is the cause of (and possibly a cure for) my bajiggity life...


The above was a Tweet I sent to the blog...learning all about the technology I have available now has felt a bit overwhelming, even though it doesn't require all the special programming languages that it used to. Thank goodness...

What I was thinking was that for so long I resisted certain kinds of technology - notably a cell phone - as an intrusion, a nuisance and an unnecessary expense. I had one when my father was ill because I was four hours away. After he died, I said there was no reason for me to have one. And truth be told, I didn't like feeling like I had to be that available.

Fast forward to Fall of 2008 when I was supposed to be teaching in Bankok for a month. I decided I wanted a connection to home so bought an iPhone to take along. In the year plus since then I've found that I can control the phone, it doesn't have to control me. That it is a fabulous tool - not toy - and is truly helpful. That said, I do still find life becoming more impersonal (an aspect of bajiggityness for me) and try to build in simple joys all around me. But, the phone isn't the problem, it's how people become addicted to the phone or any other technology to take the place of true connection - the face-to-face kind. Don't get me wrong, being in touch via technology is better than not being in touch. But it isn't the same, and no matter how much improvement there is, I don't think it ever will be in my lifetime.

Oh, and in case I left you hanging, I never got to Bangkok. That was the time - you may remember - when the folks in support of the Thai king took over the Bangkok airport and shut it down. I was stuck in Tokyo waiting to find out when/if the airport would open and woke up to the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Needless to say air travel in that part of the world was...er...experiencing delays and cancellations of a major nature. It didn't take me long to decide to turn around and come home. Perhaps that was the beginning of my decision to bloom where I'm planted....

Why I Live Where I Do

Christmas, which thanks to friends was a Norman Rockwell scene this year, and a host of less important, although urgent things have come and gone since the last post. And in the hustle and bustle of this time of year, many thoughts crossed my mind to write about. However they escaped as I moved on to the next thing. But now on the verge of a new year and a new decade, I slow down again and am reminded of the need to make a conscious choice about what to keep or try to bring about in my life and what to turn loose of in the coming year.

One of the things to keep for sure is my spot in this place....the physical surroundings of my life. Place is important to me. It affects the way I think, how I feel and what I focus on. For me, place  contributes to or diminishs the bajiggityness of life. Although I'm not sure when I first realized this, I know it was long ago, and it was long after the realization that I actually moved to a place (home, town, location) more in keeping with what feeds my soul.  When places attract people who appreciate them, community can grow.

These thoughts flowed from a brief editorial in today's New York Times. Here it is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28mon4.html

A meaningful choice

(The following was posted in very similar form in another blog of mine earlier this fall....)

When the agricultural revolution that began after WWII incorporated chemical fertilizers, industrialized agriculture and the use of all things corn in our food products, (the beginning of raising food that was not so labor intensive and thus "expensive") we started down the road to cheap food. Cheap by the world's standards - Americans spend less of their income on food than people in other countries. At the same time, we started down the road to cheap food of another definition - food that was less nutritious and as we've come to see, made with ingredients that have caused us to become a fat nation.

And while we were speeding up the growing, processing and shipping of food from all over the world to satisfy our hunger, we were losing connection to the seasons and the understanding of where food comes from. Starting about 40 years ago, large numbers of women (mostly women) walked out of the kitchen and into the workplace and they stopped cooking the way their mothers had. Individuals and families began relying on fast food or prepared food for many if not all meals. Yes, I know not everyone does this, but so many do...a common refrain among those who are trying to promote healthy eating is "nobody cooks!"

We tacitly assume that we don't need to plan meals. We decide what we want to eat on the way home. Rather than thinking through menus, working with leftovers and sometimes, eating what we have, rather than what we want, we assume the amazing choice of foods that we've come to expect will always be there. "Spontaneous shoppers" - those people who are driven by what they are hungry for or what's quick to fix - don't always eat well. Neither do those who can't afford fresh food and have to rely on fast food with lots of carbs, fat and sugar.

So here we are. A nation beginning (maybe?) to realize that we really don't have the control over the contents of our food that we used to. And although we do have control over at least part of our time, we've been trading eating well for other things. When I hear that someone doesn't have the time to cook, that's a signal to me that I may be in the gravitational pull of a bajiggity life. Everyone has all the time there is; what are the priorities that order the use of one's time? That's the question!

I wonder: what would happen if one day each month everyone in the country sat down to a home cooked dinner, made with fresh ingredients (dare I say locally grown/produced?) that was planned in advance and eaten with family and friends? It seems like one small step toward reclaiming a real, meaningful choice about how we live.