Sunday, November 05, 2017

Living Small Has Great Appeal


There is too much room here.  Too many places to "put" stuff.  If there was less room for things, I could possibly have less?  Would that be feasible? Or perhaps just have less.  In a large space.
My daughter already says my bedroom is looking austere.  I am giving things away.

I have a dream.  That I actually dream.  When I am feeling over whelmed (like now).  I dream that I become a wanderer.  Just one room I call home. Far from what I had called home.  Just a bed.  Perhaps one table. One chair. One cup.  One bowl.  Always white.  Everything white.

What did Thoreau write?  One chair for solitude.  Two for company.  Do I want company?  Yes. But only some of the time. So, perhaps two of everything.

Thoreau had paper and I write here, on air.  What would he think?  Air is too much company?

I can feel change coming.  I have no idea what it will be, but I think I need to change. I need to stop doing things the way I am and change myself again.  Like an every ten years cleanse of the personality and habits.  Shedding one life and creating another.

What to keep and what to let go.

 (G and I) took apart and carried the long, wide table (10 or 12 feet long and 40 inches wide) out of the dining/family room.  Unscrewed it.  The heavy wide board table top is in the garage and the rest (legs, sides) is out on the front porch waiting to be broken up.  G will possibly use the  table top boards to make other things.

Instead, we brought down from the attic the very first piece of furniture we bought as young married people.  A round rattan table and four rattan chairs with caned seats.

Why?  Because when our son was visiting and the four of us sat around the table---- the big table wasn't conducive to the old days.  When we sat around that round rattan table to play cards, yahtzee or just eat a meal together.  The big rectangular table wasn't cozy. Wasn't family.

I said, one evening, that I was thinking about that rattan table and chairs.  And G said right away--  let's bring it down.  So, it's now in the center of a very large (not austere) space.  Cozy.  Looking like it always should have been there.  And it makes me so very happy to see it there.  Bringing back so many good memories of our first apartment in Georgia when the table and four chairs was ALL the furniture we had--(making payments every week).  Until distant family took pity on us and gave us an old bed.  Lord, we were poor. And yet we were so happy.  Together.

That table and chairs brings it all back to me.  Living really small (smile).

4 comments:

Life Scraps and Patches said...

I love your post, with its dreams of change and then action. I was reading just yesterday about how we need to reinvent ourselves throughout our lifetimes to stay emotionally healthy.

dianen said...

Best post ever. I can picture that rattan table with you around it. I think the older we get the less stuff we need. It just bogs us down. Why is that?

Susan Sawatzky said...

Love this one

Annie said...

Nice thoughts!