Simply Living

December 03, 2024

As I’m sure many folks reading this will know, simple or slow living doesn’t mean easy living. There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Marshall’s car only plays 1 song due to a tape being stuck in the car, which is ‘I’m gonna be (500 miles)’. The joke is that no matter how infuriating the song gets, it comes back round. One scene shows Marshall and Ted seething, then swiftly cuts to them both singing along with gusto. I think I have a similar relationship with slow living.

It’s cold here at the moment, and this means we have to be extra organised with anything that uses water, as our only source of water is an outside tap. Any dishes that need done must be done so almost immediately, if we wait until too late in the evening or try to do them too early in the morning, the tap is most likely frozen and we wait. We have a window from about 11am until 4pm to fill all of our water vessels, make sure the animals are watered, coop cleaned and get dishes done. Any outside jobs done after 4:30 or so also need done with a head torch, or a lot of confidence flopping about in the dark! It’s easy to feel irritable about doing chores, especially when it’s so cold, and in the knowledge that it must be done within a deadline, but I find that when I put on my boots and lean into taking my time and doing things correctly, reminding myself that I’m not truly in a rush at all, the frantic feeling goes away allowing me to find some peace mindfulness and even a bit of pleasure in whatever I am doing.

Today I had a very nice chat with our chickens while I was doing the dishes (Bennie what happened to your ankle tag! Look at your mucky wee feet you’re a mess - if you don’t sort those out, I’ll have to do it and then you’ll huff with me you wee shit!) and roasted some sweet potatoes in the fire while I cleaned my surfaces. What had initially felt like an endless list of irritating jobs, set to waylay me from doing ‘real work’, felt beautiful and rich, like adding colour to a painting.

I sat down to do some work after getting all of my chores done with a big jar of tea on a lovely clean bench, and the sun came out - just for me I am quite convinced. It’s hard in this weather not to just snuggle up in front of the fire and eat pastries, and it’s hard to force yourself out into the cold to clean the chicken shit off the coop, but I find it to be a deeper life, and more rewarding than just sticking the dishwasher on, never thinking twice about where that water comes from. It’s beautiful to chuck root veggies into the fire to cook, or grains and legumes on top, boiling ‘for free’ as we joke each time. Life is a little messier, a little softer around the edges. And if I really wanted to, I definitely could spend a day eating pastries in front of the fire.

(aj)