I get such joy from working in the garden, I often wonder, “Why doesn’t everyone want to do this?”
Think about it. People love a garden. They drive for miles to visit parks so that they can enjoy the luscious green and sniff that fresh air. Botanical gardens in nearly every major city and plenty of smaller ones attract thousands of visitors each year yearning to gaze upon the beauty of the flowers. (Millions on the days I’m there!) People are instant friends with vegetable gardeners in their offices who bring in baskets of their bounty to share. (“Zucchini anyone?”) They buy gardening magazines by the bazillions. They’ll slow down as they drive by to admire the gardens they pass on the way to work.
Cutting Tulips in the Bumblebee Garden - April 2008
And although most folks dutifully march outside to mow the lawn on Saturdays and maybe even do a bit of weed whacking to keep the home owners’ association Nazis at bay, few people actually rush home from work to deadhead their dahlias and turn their compost. I’m talking about creating the kind of garden that makes people want to linger. At least not the people that I know.
So why don’t more people actually create their own oases of beauty at home?
Lettuce and Veggies at Bumblebee - April 2008
When visitors see Bumblebee the first thing most people usually ask is, “How much time does all this take?” (I suspect they’re also wondering, “How much does she spend on this gardening hobby of hers?”)
I used to believe one of the biggest hurdles for most people is time. The desire is there, but most folks just can’t seem to work it into their schedules because we’re just too darned busy working to buy things. After all, the time gurus tell us that as Americans, in particular, we are possession rich and time poor.
Climbing Roses at Bumblebee - April 2008
But wait a minute. Think about this little nugget from the 2006 Time Use Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On an average day, nearly every American age 15 and older–a whopping 95%–had several hours of leisure activity. Men had 5.7 hours of leisure time and women had 4.9 hours of leisure time. (I won’t even go into that glaring disparity right now.) That’s every single day. But for both men and women, half of that leisure time activity was spent watching television!
That means that most U.S. men and women are spending close to three hours of time watching television every single day!
Well, that explains it. Or at least part of it.
Sure, not everyone is as hepped up to sweat in the sun while ruining their manicure as I am. And not everyone has the space to garden. Some people are not able to manage the physical demands of gardening. A whole lot of people have no idea even how to get started since most of us no longer live near the grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles who were traditionally our garden mentors. And I recognize that gardening on a grand scale can be costly, although there are plenty of budget alternatives to beautify the yard.
But for quite a lot of people, it’s mostly a matter of preferring to watch “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.” Ultimately, it seems, Americans are making choices to tune out rather than to engage and create beauty right outside their own backdoors.
Sadly for them, these choices won’t amount to much at the end of their days. Our lives are defined by the choices we make. Some of us will know all the winning strategies to be the “Survivor.” And some of us will have lovely gardens, islands of peace, to share with friends and loved ones.
Robin
For me, peace of mind includes being organized and having a plan.
That includes what I’m cooking and when. I find that if I have a weekly menu plan and shop for the week I face far less of a struggle at 6 p.m. when it’s time to start cooking dinner. (We usually eat at 8:15 p.m. - I know. An ungodly hour for most people.) The ingredients are all there. The recipe is there. I have everything that I need.
I also find that posting a glossy designed and printed version of the week’s recipes on the refrigerator minimizes last minute requests and grumbling. Everyone knows what the heck to expect–and looks forward to.
Of course, around here planning a week of food that everyone will eat is no small task. There are many food fetishes and dislikes. It takes some serious head-scratching and thumbing through my vast cookbook collection. Recently, I’ve hit on the idea of theme menus. We have had Greek Week, International Week and Vegetarian Week. This week is Power Foods Week.
The menus also give me an opportunity to introduce nutrition ideas into the conversation without being overly dogmatic–important for the receptivity of teenage guys. (Surprisingly, my 16-year-old son prefers “spa foods.” Imagine my surprise!)
Since I go to such lengths to plan and design the menu, I thought I might start sharing them. So here’s my menu for this week, the Power Foods menu.
Bon appetit!
Robin
[Because I am in no position to preach to anyone about the environment, this is an open letter to myself on Blog Action Day.]Dear Robin,
You joined Slow Food USA. You have written about your yearning for simplicity. You have taken some baby steps toward environmentally sound practices and more healthful living. But I believe it’s time to stop joining, talking and taking baby steps.
It occurs to me that true change can only occur if you just…slow…down. Stop working seven days a week. Stop rushing around and living without, well, living. Stop being so impatient to get everything done right now. Live mindfully about what you are doing every moment and about the consequences of your choices and actions.
Slowing down will be good for you and for your family. What’s more, it will be good for the environment.
I will give you some examples of some of your personal actions that contribute to the environmental crisis we’re facing:
-You sometimes drive when you can walk. Do you really need to move your SUV from one end of the shopping center to the other as you do your errands? Can’t you walk there and back?
-You still use products such as weed killers and harsh cleaning products because they provide a fast, short-term solution, although they add little drips to the stream of pollution that is killing the earth.
-You drive past local farmers’ produce stands and buy the same produce at the grocery stores that is imported from the other side of the country–or the other side of the world.
-You still buy some ready-made foods rather than baking your own bread, making your own cheese or growing what you need with methods that don’t require chemicals, additives or being shipped from far away.
-You still throw clothes into the dryer rather than air drying them in the sun and fresh air.
-You waste energy by doing such things as leaving the computer on all night long so you won’t have to wait to read your email in the morning.
-You haven’t taken seriously the environmental cry to reduce, reuse and recycle.I could go on, but I don’t want to embarrass you here.
By slowing down, you will walk more gently on the earth. You can make some healthy changes that will mean better, healthier foods, less stress from hurrying around and more time with family and friends. You might also save some money and sleep better because you’ve gotten a bit more exercise (and, uh, saved some money).
Nuff said. Go out and do better now.
Robin
I long for the simple life.
I greet the morning slowly and in quiet. I take my first deep breaths as I stretch into a forward bend and into a downward dog. The day unfolds before me as a calm and pleasant series of purposeful and fulfilling tasks. I move through my day at an unhurried pace, taking time to breathe deeply and to enjoy the nature around me. The people I encounter are pleasant and positive. I have a simple and organized environment to accomplish my life’s work. I am unfettered by an overabundance of possessions that need to be cared for and guarded. I pursue interesting and meaningful hobbies.
“Gee whiz. Where the heck did this come from?” I can hear you saying.
Despite the fact that it’s a long holiday weekend, I’ve been working at my desk the whole dang time to make up for the fact that I have spent most of the past month traveling.
This much I know is true: There is absolutely nothing simple about traveling for a whole month.
Here’s just a sampling of what happens when you aren’t at home to take care of your complicated life:
-
The weeds that have been lurking for just the right opportunity, leap at the chance to seize control of the garden kingdom.
-
Little dogs become just a wee bit high strung and barky from lack of continuity and routine.
-
Items in kitchen cabinets no longer reside in their original resting places. None of them.
-
Refrigerators devolve into a disorganized and occasionally rotting, fetid unrecognizable lump.
-
Garden blogs languish from lack of attention.
-
Desks are heaped with mail—most of it junk, but some of which requires immediate attention. If you could just find it.
-
Lists of un-done errands extend to more than one page of notepaper and require a staff to accomplish.
-
Work piles up so that (obviously) you have to work over a holiday weekend to try and dig out of the hole.
Oh, I recently had quite a lot of time to think about the simple life before being slapped in the face with all the above. Sitting on a plane from California to Maryland with only a book I didn’t even like and a seat mate that I liked even less meant I spent a lot of time with my eyes closed, mulling over my sorry situation.
That’s how I pinged pack to the whole simple life concept.
(See how all this just flows nicely together here?)
Now, just to be crystal clear, I’m not talking about Simple Life as in that insipid magazine (which I refuse to link to). I’ll admit that I have picked this particular magazine up from time to time. I have occasionally even PAID for it, after which I felt like I had been fleeced for my four bucks or so.
Really, I don’t need a magazine to tell me which is simply the BEST deodorant or to compare the BEST winter gloves. Deodorant and warm gloves will not make my life more simple or peaceful. The editors of this magazine seem to think that their readers are simple minded. They must be yukking it up in the halls of their fancy editorial offices at how they can MAKE MONEY with a magazine that is high on graphics and low on content. They must really find it funny that they get to tell women how to make the very best omelets ever and which toothpaste to buy.
Wowee. I seem to have a pretty good rant going here. Sorry about that.
So, you ask, if Simple Living (the aforementioned insipid magazine) isn’t really about simple and you’ve had all this quality time in planes, trains and automobiles to contemplate, ruminate and cogitate on the weighty subject of simplicity, just what the heck have you concluded?
I’ll start by telling you what I think it’s NOT. Simple living is NOT about deprivation or frugality. In my mind, at least, it’s not about squeezing every penny until it screams by rinsing and re-using plastic bags or sewing bias tape to the legs of your kids’ jeans to extend the length because the poor kid sprouted over the summer. Simple living is not about only taking vacations that offer the benefit of a friends’ couch or a relative’s basement guest room. Simple living is not about only shopping at those wretched, big box warehouses that require you buy in bulk for a small army and stock up until Doomsday. Simple living is not about unplugging or disconnecting. No Idaho log cabins for this gal.
More rant going, I guess.
So if that’s what simple living is not, then what does Robin consider Simple Living?
I’ll tell you. Thanks very much for asking.
Here are Robin’s 9 Tenets for the Simple Life.
1. The simple life is having time for the things that matter and that you find enjoyable. It means taking the time for celebrations, not just of birthdays and weddings, but of the first flower in spring or a new drivers license.
2. The simple life is having what you need—when you need it. That also means having enough money to give to causes that you support or to nieces living in poverty. It means planning enough in advance so that you don’t have to complicate your life with last minute rushes to the store for something forgotten.
3. The simple life is not being a slave to an overabundance of possessions that require care and maintenance. I believe that it was Charles Rennie Macintosh who said that you should strive to have only things that were useful or beautiful or both surrounding you. It means loving what you have, not necessarily having what you love.
4. The simple life means your possessions and your time are organized. What is the old adage? “Everything has a place. Every thing in its place.” Organization—or time and things—reduces the need for frenzy and rush.
5. The simple life is being able to say “no” to a job or responsibility. It means sticking to the “no assholes” rule—or at least making sure your adequately compensated for the aggravation.
6. The simple life is maximizing your health and fitness so that you’re able to meet each day with energy and joy.
7. The simple life is feeling at peace with the people in your life. It means minimizing time with negative people or “friends” who display little care about you and more care about what you can do for them.
8. The simple life is having a support system for help when you need it. It also means that the people you share your life with do their part to take care of themselves.
9. The simple life is having the freedom to explore and travel—even if it’s only in your mind, online or at the local library. It’s the time you have to engage in the hobbies and interests that the harried masses don’t have. It’s that part of simple living that makes you a really interesting person.
There really should be 10 Tenets, don’t you think? I wonder what I am missing? What are the overarching rules that contribute to simplicity in your life?
(Please don’t send me hate mail because I don’t like that silly magazine.)
–Robin (Peaceful Bumblebee)
Comment posting is now at the top of the entry, under the headline. Comments are welcomed and appreciated. I read them all and respond to questions. You can post securely and have the option of posting your URL and email address or not. Email addresses are not shown and are not available to visitors.
Click here to bookmark using any of more than a dozen bookmarking tools:
Robin
