Living simply

Easter, like all the world’s spring festivals, is a celebration of new life, of second chances. New beginnings are both exciting and challenging times. We are moving into unchartered territory and the question remains, How shall we approach this? Over the last year and especially the last few days, I’ve been thinking hard about how I would like to proceed in this ‘brave new world’. Things won’t be normal for ages and perhaps never will be, though I can’t say I am sad about that. Our old lives were crazily busy and unsustainable. If this last year has given us anything, it has been the opportunity to hit the pause button on life and reset it. This is an incredible gift, which I doubt will come again. So as we enter into our new ways of being, how will we define them? What structures will we give our lives? When planning this post, I came up with way too many ideas to address here, but I have managed to condense them into five categories – ways of living – that will be good for me and the planet. I doubt I will succeed all the time, but that is the whole point of new beginnings. They can occur once a year or every dawn. If I fail, and I will often fail, I shall just begin. Again.

Time to leave my ‘lock-down’ egg. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

This last year, managing on a very much smaller budget, has meant that living simply was as much a necessity as an option. Yet, bizarrely, our lives were infinitely richer. My husband and I finally had plenty time to spend together; we tended our garden and were rewarded with a bumper crop; we were grateful for everything we had. We had enough.

With my husband getting back to normal working hours, our income will increase once more and the temptation is to return to the convenience that purchasing power gives. However, I am determined to keep living simply at the heart of all I do. I want to make my own bread; I want to make meals a time of celebration as well as nourishment; I want to reduce the demands put on the planet through buying less and up-cycling more.

While doing the obligatory cupboard cleaning, I was appalled at just how much stuff we have. From now on, I’m going to take care to look and see what might serve a purpose before rushing off to buy something new. Often spares languish at the back of the cupboard while we shop. Often, a little imagination enables us to reuse or upcycle objects that might otherwise be thrown out. It is a creative act and one which, for me at least, is more pleasure than chore.

Living slowly

Living frantically didn’t do me any good. Both my serious illnesses were triggered by stress. Slowing down, taking time to simply be, to smell the flowers and to focus mindfully on each task has allowed my body to heal in ways I didn’t think were possible. Tempting though it might be to start rushing around again, I can take a hint.

Take time to enjoy Nature Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Ironically, slow living is not boring living. Time doesn’t drag but glides seamlessly from one hour to the next. Slow living is about being rather than doing. And when we live within time, it becomes fluid. The task takes the time it needs to take, no more and no less. Time is no longer the enemy, but rather the liquid medium through which we work.

Living creatively

Time and limited finances have both contributed to living more creatively. There are hours in the day without appointments, so I can doodle and create for as long as the dog is willing to sit still. Apart from childhood, I have never done so many crafts and art projects. They are hardly professional, but they are entertaining. With the help of YouTube, one can learn almost anything and that resource is available to everyone and free.

Stretched finances means that making gifts and cards is the sensible option. Though I can’t offer the most expensive presents, I hope that I can offer something made with the person in mind – a sort of economy bespoke. And when I do purchase something I think the recipient would love, I take time to wrap with care. For my own part, the most precious gifts that I’ve received are ones that someone has made for me. They are the ones that are kept and cherished.

A butterfly card for a butterfly lover! Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Living flexibly

Just as there are groups for recovering alcoholics, I think there should be support groups for recovering control freaks. In the past, my page to a day diary was crammed with entries: places to be, things to do, appointments and work. A blank page would have left me disoriented. My life was scheduled from sun-up to sundown. And heaven forbid if plans had to be changed! Like removing a brick from a giant Jenga game, one loose block destabilised the whole. Well, the tower did fall eventually and I have been assembling the pieces ever since. Except now, I do not feel the need for a huge tower – any interesting formation will do.

Picking up the pieces Image: Naveen Kumar on Unsplash

The pandemic with all its shifting rules, uncertainties and cancelled trips, has made planning a fool’s game. So now, in proper Zen fashion, I take each day as it comes. Accepting that one really has very little control in life, though initially horrifying, is hugely consoling. Though I still have tasks I’d like to do each day, I try to ignore the pressure to complete by some arbitrary time, but rather work on the assumption that they will get done. They do not always get finished on the allotted day, but amazingly they are almost always realised. There are advantages to having a shorter list.

Living socially

For me, there is no greater pleasure than the company of those I love. Lock-down has precluded face to face contact, but it has not impeded my enjoying friendships in other ways. My telephone schedule has meant that we are all up-to-date with each others’ news; I write letters and emails more often and at greater length; I have started regular video calls with a friend in the States. I intend to maintain all of these plus, I hope, the joy of personal interaction. Separation from my children in the States is my only real sadness: Skype is only a partial substitute for a hug.

And if these strange times have taught us anything, it is just how much we need and depend on each other. When life’s demands become more urgent again in the coming weeks, the trick will be to remember where our priorities lie.

A roadmap for life

I hope that this long weekend will give you an opportunity to evaluate what you would like life to be like in the future. Elaborate plans are not necessary, but I do think deciding on your objectives and how you might achieve them is helpful. Whatever you decide, I hope it brings you joy.

Happy Easter!

As we enter our second full lock-down, it is more important than ever to see what benefits we can take from the first. The arrival of the vaccine is a beacon of hope, but of course, vaccines must be made, those delivering it trained and those receiving it administered. It will certainly be weeks, if not months, until any kind of normality returns. We could, as so many folks are doing, complain about the delay, or we could make the most of this hiatus from normal life. Since this blog is entitled, ‘When life gives you lemons,’ you know which approach I’ll be taking.

Living Simply

Since the first lock-down, my husband and I have been managing on rather less than half pay. We imagined that our carefully reserved savings would be wiped out; that our standard of living would plummet. Yet, ironically, we haven’t touched our emergency fund and our standard of living has never been better. Of course, we haven’t been on holiday or out to restaurants. We haven’t bought much in the way of clothes or had haircuts (though I could certainly do with one!) Living simply at home has meant that what we actually need is very little. Realising this has been liberating.

Simple and delicious! Homemade summer squash and vegetable soup and bread. Thanks to YouTube, I learned how to freeze my glut of squashes. Image: Jeff Costello-McFeat

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generosity of the government furlough scheme, which ensured my husband kept his job and worked as much or as little as the pandemic allowed. Many of his colleagues in the US lost their jobs and I can all too well imagine how distressing that situation would be. So though Boris bashing may be a national pastime at the moment, having peered over the brink of an economic abyss, I am eternally grateful that I live in a country where, no matter what happens, your basic needs will be met.

God bless the NHS

Equally, I cannot say how much I treasure a health service that is free at the point of delivery. Trying to stay well during a pandemic is stressful enough; trying to work out how to pay for medical care should you require a prolonged hospital stay falls into the realm of nightmare. We are so used to this luxury that we forget that for almost all the rest of the world, it is an impossible dream.

I loved that we all stood out and applauded those front-line workers who care for us, but we need to show that we fully respect them by doing everything in our power to stay well and, equally vitally, to keep everyone else well too.

Working from home

As someone who has worked from home for the past eighteen years, I am well aware of its benefits. But for those used to the crazy hours and even crazier commutes of modern life, it has been a revelation. People who once had to rise at 6.30 to have any hope of getting to work before 9.00, can now enjoy rising at a civilised hour and have an extra two to four hours for themselves. People who barely got to see their children before bedtime, were able to join them for lunch. Jobs which seemed vital to perform in an office environment; meetings scheduled hundreds or even thousand of miles away, suddenly proved to be quite capable of being conducted successfully from home. For many, the realisation that a work/life balance is possible, will, I hope be carried forward into new working practices. Of course, most people will enjoy going to the office and having that social interaction, but it doesn’t need to be everyday. I, for one, will miss my husband terribly when he goes back to work. I’m just hoping that his usual twelve hour days will be reduced and that some of them will be worked at home.

Getting outside

The change that has been most obvious during the various lock-downs has been the number of people getting out to exercise and socialise. Almost all my friends now walk regularly and I suspect this is true for everyone. Where in the past, we might go for a walk in a local beauty spot and meet the odd other person, now we have to find somewhere less crowded. Parking at our favourite haunt at Birling Gap is virtually impossible. And although I sometimes grumble about all the outsiders using ‘our’ favourite spaces, I am actually delighted that families are making the effort to introduce their children to the wonders of the natural world. And as the restrictions are relaxed, I hope that at least some will continue look to the outdoors for entertainment before their Xboxes or iPads.

The garden in winter Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Despite the fairly atrocious weather recently, I still spend time in the garden every day and I join my husband for at least one of Hermione’s walks. Yesterday evening it was dark with freezing, drizzly rain, yet being outside felt wonderful and returning to a warm home, better still.

Giving the planet a rest

The pandemic has certainly not been good for humanity, but it has been very good for the natural world. Skies that were a fretwork of contrails are now only blotted by cloud. Roads, once congested and hazardous to cross, are now blessedly quiet. And as our spending and consumption decreases, so does the impact we have on the planet. Of course, I’m not suggesting we go back to living in a yurt, but this period has shown that we do not have to destroy our natural home to live well.

Because despite the challenges, difficulties and even grief this pandemic has brought us, it has focused our attention on what really matters. It seems, the best things in life are free. These things: friendship, family, health and Nature all nourish us in ways that material things only gratify briefly. If we can remember this and carry forward what we have learned, 2021 should be a very good year indeed, no matter how long it takes to resolve the current health crisis.

I’d like to end with a beautiful poem my friend sent me. It may be a little optimistic, but one can dream…

And the people stayed home

And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Kitty O’Meara

Tag: Living simply

Begin. Again.