Living with Less

Gatineau Park, January 2012

I think most twenty-somethings go through a "get rid of all of my belongings" phase. For me, it started some time during University, around the time I realized that until you own a home, owning things meant moving things. It was easier, I reckoned, to live without things than to have to haul them around from place to place. Of course, there are necessities, not least of all my cooking paraphernalia, but I tried not to hang on to anything I wasn't strongly attached to. Every time I move, I try to pare it down a bit more, and I think I've really got it to a minimum. There's no point in tossing out things wastefully that I will later need.

These days, I'm inclined to think of things a bit differently. It's not about being okay with not having anything because I can't have anything, it's about being okay with having nothing because, in reality, the physical things don't really matter that much. The things I do have, I appreciate. A lot. And the things I don't have? Well, I probably don't need them. I don't want to need them. If I need them, then I need a means to get them, which means I need money. And money, my friends, is probably a thing I am not going to be blessed with in my life. Not if I can help it, anyway.

Community Garden mural at Bank and Laurier, Ottawa.

See, I tried living for things, for a while. I tried really hard. And it was fun there, at times. But I wasn't happy. And over time, I began to realize that what made me happy had nothing to do with acquiring belongings. It was the way I lived that brought me pleasure, joy, and contentment-- or not, as the case was, back then. It felt wrong to drive 20 km to work every day to a job I didn't love at a company that sells people things they don't really need (nothing against that particular company, though! All companies do that. That's how the system works). I didn't feel like I was connected to anything real. Except, that is, when I pulled out those seed catalogues, and those garden planning books, and starting soaking up knowledge about how to become self-sufficient. I didn't even do it consciously. I just wanted to have a garden because I like food and cooking and growing things. But in hindsight, I see the logic behind it all. If I don't have to buy food, then I don't have to have a job I don't love, and I can do what I love all day, if I want to. I can grow food.

Cozumel, Mexico

It's true, I'm a dreamer. I've always been an idealist. And for a really long time I thought that my dreams weren't realistic. Or that, if they were, I would never be happy if I really chased them, because I wouldn't have money and I would always be struggling to survive. But then this crazy thing happened.

I took a risk, and I tried it out. I lived with nothing. I grew food, and I spent a great deal of time alone, and I wandered around in the woods, and sang to myself, and I dug in the dirt, and laid on the grass in the rain, and finally-- finally!-- I felt real.

I've been living with very little for some time now. I would love to spend the money left over from each pay cheque on exotic foods, but I don't. I get just as much pleasure from digging out a 4 month old squash that I grew myself, and turning it into dinner. And I keep the money I save, to pay off my debts. And I feel a sense of satisfaction when I take a delicious bite of a potato, onion, carrot and kale stir fry seasoned with paprika and garlic, because most of those ingredients are items I grew myself.

Vanderwater Park, December 2011

When I'm done eating dinner, and I'm thinking about my day, I don't think about things I wish I had, or what I don't like about my job or the fact that I have to live in the city as a necessity of modern life. I think about how I love my life. I walk in the door when I get home from work and take pleasure in the smell that makes me feel home. I enjoy my roommates, so I hug them. And then we eat some of the zucchini chocolate cake I made, and talk about how water is like liquid diamonds [me], or like a miniature lake in your hands [Rachael]. I enjoy the little nest I have to sleep and dream in. I like winter, because of the way the sun falls on the snow, and the exhilaration of the cold, and the rosy cheeks, and the hot chocolate and the way that life slows down just enough that you can finally take time to appreciate it. I like living, because I'm friends with the world that I live in. Nobody's out to get me, and the world is not against me-- it's on my side. And if I play my cards right, the earth will give me everything I need to sustain myself.

I don't need money. At least, not much of it. If it weren't for the system we live in, I wouldn't need any at all. The less reliant on money I get, the better I feel. So I've decided it's time for another life experiment. Recently, I had to make a [self-imposed] choice between going West to make money, and heading East to learn how to be more self-sufficient. I chose the latter.

It was a long road, but it was a good one.
[ancient Mayan ruins]

In March, I'm going to head home to make maple syrup with my Dad. And in April, I'm going to drive to a permaculture farm in Nova Scotia and set up house in a tent trailer for the next 7 months. I'm going to live on vegetables, exercise, and love-- love for the earth, love for my fellow farmers, and love for the life that I've been given. I'm going to swim in the sea, slide on the mud flats, bike for miles, and spend day after day sweating and straining to make things grow.

And I am more certain about this about anything I have ever known before: I'm going to be happy. I am happy. I've finally made that choice.