The Joy of Less Read online

  “The old black one of Grandma’s that sat in the kitchen.”

  “That never belonged to your grandmother, honey.”

  What? Was my dad’s memory slipping? “Dad, I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  “The broken teacart belonged to a neighbor of my parents,” he explained. “The old guy died before he could fix it, so your Grandpa promised to fix it for the wife. But then Grandpa passed away, so your grandmother brought it to me to fix. Before I got to around to fixing it, we lost Grandma, and then the old thing ended up at your place. Never was a very good design. Cheap veneer, too, from what I recall.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but I’d learned a life changing truth that day. Memories are not made of things, but of relationships. Lives are not connected by objects but by stories about those objects. Appreciating family heirlooms can be a wonderful thing, but allowing possessions to possess us is not. The next day, I called a local charity that helped recovering addicts repair donated items to sell at a resale shop.

  “Sure, lady,” they promised, “We’ll fix it.”

  I prefer to believe they kept their promise and the old teacart found a good home. But in the eternal scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. The Bible reminds us to lay up our treasures in Heaven, as everything else is just hay and stubble, no matter how sentimental.

  The adage “less is more” proved to be true on our journey to a simple life. We have a big family that enjoys getting together, and many out-of-town friends visit often. Our solution for overnight guests? Sofa-beds, air mattresses, and sleeping bags. Our cottage was tiny, but we packed everyone in, often bursting to the seams with love and laughter.

  During a record-breaking snowfall, we bought a Jeep. The following spring we adopted a rescue Lab. I wrote while my husband tinkered in his woodshop. Simplicity is what we’d yearned for; richness is what we were bestowed.

  ~Julia M. Toto

  Going Naked

  Whether I’m wearing lots of make-up or no make-up, I’m the same person inside.

  ~Lady Gaga

  It didn’t happen quickly. First, I stood in front of a mirror for several long minutes staring at my naked face. There was not a trace of make-up on it. And I was about to meet the outside world this way.

  I’d been wearing make-up since my mother finally allowed it in the ninth grade. First it was just lipstick — a shade called “Pixie Pink” that made me feel like the most grown-up, glamorous creature on the planet.

  As the years went by, I experimented with other delights like eye shadow, eyeliner and — the big one — mascara. Things got better when I mastered the art of getting that sticky stuff on my eyelashes, not in my eyes.

  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think of going to the supermarket without at least some make-up. I’d spend at least five or ten minutes each day in front of the mirror putting on various products that promised me miracles. I have dozens more of these products rattling around, virtually unused, in drawers and closets.

  I would probably think twice about going to the library, the cleaners or even the gas station without hiding behind some make-up.

  But recently, I had seen two TV shows that got me thinking.

  One was a documentary about the men and women who chose to go back in time and live as folks had in pioneer days. They had no creature comforts, no conveniences.

  And what did one woman weep about during those first few weeks?

  Her loss of make-up.

  Then one of the talk shows did a segment on three women whose cosmetics were taken away for a week. Their reactions ranged from mild hysteria to a sense of release and relief.

  It all gave me pause. I figured this was as good a time as any to try liberating myself from the shackles of cosmetics.

  I figured this was as good a time as any to try liberating myself from the shackles of cosmetics.

  My husband, who is still basically clueless about what is in those jars and tubes, thought it was a terrific idea.

  My daughters couldn’t believe I’d actually leave the house without eyebrow pencil.

  And my fifth grade granddaughter proclaimed all make-up “yucky” and told me she’d never, ever wear it.

  Well, I did it. On a recent day, I went to the mall in pants, a blazer, fairly fashionable boots — and not a drop of anything else on my face or lips.

  Initially, I felt exposed. Utterly vulnerable. And in my view, I looked like I was dying.

  Miracle of miracles, nobody stared. Or gaped. Or even seemed to notice.

  The saleswoman in the department store was happy to sell me four blue bath towels. The man behind the counter at a jewelry store to whom I handed a necklace to repair didn’t look away in horror.

  I even got brave enough to walk into the hair salon, where beauty is a sacred rite, to schedule a haircut appointment. There, the receptionist did seem to do a double take. Still, I held my head high and scheduled my next trim.

  By day’s end, I’d almost forgotten that I was moving around in the world minus my mask. Back at home, my husband stared a bit, then asked me whether I was feeling all right. He’d forgotten, of course, that this was Experiment Day. To him, I just looked weary.

  Okay, what have I learned?

  First, that I can do it. I can leave home without even a trace of lipstick. Nobody cares.

  Next, that I am definitely a woman who looks better with make-up than without it. Perhaps it is decades of training my eye to see myself that way. Maybe it’s the hype I’ve absorbed from a culture in which women spend billions to gild the lily.

  Finally, I’ve decided that every once in a while, just to test my own confidence, I’m going to come out from hiding and go au naturel. Uncomplicate at least one part of my overloaded life.

  It’s probably good for the skin.

  And it’s surely good for the soul.

  ~Sally Friedman

  The Joy of No

  Eating Lentils

  Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

  ~Maria Robinson

  I practiced law in the 1980s. That was the era of L.A. Law and business suits with “power shoulders.” My department at the law firm was major and complex litigation, and business was booming.

  I did a lot of traveling — flying into Denver for a week of hearings, days of depositions in New Jersey, document production in Philadelphia, and months of trial in Los Angeles. We flew first class and stayed in luxury hotels. After growing up in a rural, blue-collar family, the first to earn a college — let alone professional — degree, it felt like I’d really “made it.”

  I realized I could buy an expensive purse or briefcase if I saw one I wanted. So I did. I never quite got over my childhood frugality, but I did treat myself to good haircuts. And I shopped a lot on my lunch hours, buying high-end clothing at department stores.

  I’d worked hard for my career, graduating at the top of my class, but I hated it. I’d enjoyed the study of law, but I didn’t enjoy practicing it. The adversarial, competitive aspects of litigation wore me down. The stresses of decision-making on multi-million-dollar lawsuits kept me awake at night.

  As I rode public transit to work, I retreated into reading a book, trying to forget where I was headed. I became a clock watcher, longing to leave the office and be on my way home. Friday nights were wonderful. Saturday nights were sad, because I knew my weekend was already half over.

  I felt trapped by velvet handcuffs. How could I walk away from something I’d worked so hard for — which people told me I was good at? How could I give up such a high salary — one my father could never have dreamed of? How could I tell my husband the sacrifices we’d both made were no longer enough motivation to make me stay?

  My cat Sammy seemed to sense my misery. We’d inherited the red-point Siamese from my husband’s aunt when she passed, and I’d been there for him during his protracted grief. Now, he was there for me when I came home at night, settling his warm bulk int
o my lap with a comforting, rhythmic purr.

  I was a ball of anxiety, but the day I quit that job, I felt a lifting inside me.

  My low point came when Sammy started to lose weight and his coat became rough looking. The vet said he had feline leukemia. In those days, there was no vaccine, and the disease was terminal. Adding to my grief, we were in trial in Los Angeles, and I flew out every Sunday night and didn’t return till the following Friday night. I felt like I was abandoning my faithful little friend in his darkest hour.

  After we lost Sammy, my desire to leave the firm became overwhelming. Arriving in Denver late one night, with a massive head cold, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. My boss was holding a strategy meeting in the next room, along with a junior partner and our local counsel. When he asked if I wanted to join them, I pled my need to sleep off the worst of my cold.

  It was already eleven on the East Coast, but out here, only nine. I fell asleep to the rumble of voices through the wall. That was when I became sharply aware that my boss should logically have been my role model — the success I was aspiring to. But I knew I didn’t want to be the person who had to chair a meeting late at night, with people looking to me for answers. That’s when I definitely knew I was living somebody else’s dream, not my own.

  From that moment on, my actions were governed by my plan to escape. We paid off our mortgage early and drove our older, paid-off cars. I crunched numbers constantly, trying to figure out how to survive without my income. Nothing else I was qualified to do — or could bear to think of doing — paid nearly as much money as practicing law. My only other training was as a writer — a notoriously ill-paid and unpredictable profession.

  After six years, I made partner. Among the perks was a travel junket every year to a legal conference any place I chose. I never took it. Maybe subconsciously, I didn’t want to have people saying I’d taken advantage, only to quit shortly afterward. Neither did I take the free, luxury leased car. I wanted to own my own transportation, and not have to worry about being forced to turn my lease in and suddenly having to buy a car in order to make my getaway. When my fellow junior partners took out big mortgages for sprawling five-bedroom showplaces in upscale neighborhoods, we just stayed in our old farmhouse with its worn siding. Consciously, we tried to travel light — and debt-free.

  As a young mom, I took the longest-available maternity leaves, and sobbed for weeks before I had to return to work. I missed my children and knew they were missing me, too. But no matter how many ways I crunched the numbers, they still didn’t work. Things would have to go. We’d have to cut our eating out, and the traveling we loved so much. No more browsing for beautiful purses and clothing. Even so — with vet bills, swimming lessons for the kids, math tutoring, etc. — it would be tight.

  But when my girls were six years old, and my son eight, I finally quit. It had been nearly twenty years. My husband knew my desperation, and one day, just said, “Do it. You can’t keep going through life this way.”

  I was a ball of anxiety, but the day I quit that job, I felt a lifting inside me. I started smiling a lot. A few other young partners confessed they wished they could do what I was doing. One of them cornered me to ask, “How are you doing it?”

  “Living in an old house. Eating rice and beans. Driving old cars,” I said.

  I told him the story of the old man who lived on lentil soup. Another man felt sorry for him, and gave him this advice: “If you bow down to the king, you won’t have to eat lentils anymore.” The old man smiled and shook his head. “If you would learn to eat lentils, you wouldn’t need to bow down to the king.”

  My friend smiled sadly and shook his head. “I like my BMW.”

  I smiled back. “Luckily, we like lentils.”

  ~Katie Drew

  Mommy, Your Head Is Wrong!

  While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.

  ~Angela Schwindt

  It was a busy day, but as a single mom with a full-time job and two young children to care for, this was nothing unusual. I had just gotten home from my job as an elementary school teacher and I had less than thirty minutes to feed the kids and shuttle them to their afterschool activities.

  Both of my children were sitting at the table, not so patiently waiting for dinner to be served. The kids had been bickering since I’d picked them up from daycare, and I was feeling a bit irritable from refereeing.

  I was dashing back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, ferrying bowls of food on each trip. As I leaned over my three-year-old daughter to place a bowl of green beans on the table, I realized that she was staring at me.

  “What’s wrong, Julia?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head, eyes wide, and continued to stare at my face.

  I reached for a paper napkin, assuming the spaghetti sauce had splattered on me. But before I could wipe my face, Julia grabbed my arm. “Don’t, Mommy. Don’t touch it,” she said urgently.

  “Why not?”

  “Because your head is wrong.”

  “My head is wrong?” I asked. “How could my head be wrong?”

  She nodded vigorously. “It’s wrong, Mommy. Up here, it’s wrong.” She touched my forehead gently with her chubby fingers.

  My hand followed hers. I felt my forehead, which at that moment, was a mass of stress-induced wrinkles.

  Julia nodded again. “See, I told you. Your head is wrong.”

  I chuckled and tried to ignore the less than subtle reminder that I was indeed getting older. “It’s not wrong, sweetheart. Mommy’s head just gets like that when I’m really busy.”

  “Well, when you’re busy, your head looks mad,” she insisted.

  “But Mom is always busy,” piped up my six-year-old son, Jordan.

  Jordan said, “Mom, I like it better this way. Staying home sometimes feels good.”

  I began to explain that I always had so much to do, but I stopped short. In my children’s logic, if busy equals mad, did that mean that I always looked angry to them?

  What a scary thought.

  I sat down at the table, dinner quickly forgotten. I rubbed the deep grooves on my forehead and looked at each of my children.

  “What are you doing, Mom?” Jordan asked.

  “Taking a break,” I answered softly, knowing that the three of us clearly needed one. After thinking for a moment, I asked them if they would be okay with skipping their activities that evening. “Let’s stay in tonight and just be together,” I suggested.

  “Can we play Go Fish?” Julia asked.

  “Of course,” I said, giving her a hug.

  “Can we watch a movie and eat popcorn?” Jordan asked.

  “Absolutely,” I answered with a grin.

  That night, the three of us relaxed and spent time together. We played games and hung out, something we rarely did during our hustle and bustle weeks.

  During a game of Connect Four, Jordan said, “Mom, I like it better this way. Staying home sometimes feels good.”

  I smiled. “You’re right.”

  “So I was thinking, do I have to sign up for soccer again next year? Because I really like playing hockey better anyway. And I think one thing is enough for me.”

  I laughed so hard that tears filled my eyes. “I’ve been thinking the same thing for months, but I didn’t want to disappoint you,” I said.

  Jordan grinned. “I won’t be disappointed. I’ll feel better because I’ll have more nights like this one.”

  As I hugged my son, I could feel a burden lift from my shoulders. “More nights like this one is exactly what we need,” I said.

  At bedtime, while I was reading a story to Julia, I caught her studying my face once again.

  “What now, honey?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  She smiled and touched my forehead. She said, “Mommy, you fixed it. Your head is right again.”

  I smiled back, grateful that my priorities were finally straightene
d out as well.

  ~Diane Stark

  From Super to Serene

  Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

  ~Peter Drucker

  My goal was to be Super Mom. I cooked elaborate meals and decorated snacks. I made costumes and devised holiday games. I took my little ones to “Mommy and Me” classes and never missed any of our kids’ ballgames, band concerts, or plays. Like most parents, I drove them to lessons, practices, rehearsals, and club meetings, helped with homework, and provided a welcoming atmosphere for their friends. Since I also worked a regular job while finishing my college degree, I often stayed up into the wee hours of the morning catching up on laundry, cleaning, and details for the coming days.

  My husband and I spent plenty of family fun time with our children, too, enjoying hiking, sports, and board games. There were also vacations to plan and out-of-state relatives to host so our kids could have time with extended family. Every activity was a joy that I didn’t want to miss.

  My “super” mindset extended beyond home. I was a “yes” person, always agreeing to help anytime and anywhere volunteers were needed. Field trip chaperone and classroom assistant at our kids’ schools. Sunday School teacher, summer vacation Bible School teacher, and cook for the seniors’ dinner at our church. Fundraising walk organizer, donation collector, volunteer recruiter, newsletter writer, and public relations associate at one charity after another. I wanted do my part to help people and improve the world. Sometimes I was the one who had to make the calls asking for volunteers, and I knew scheduling people to lend a hand could be difficult. So, whenever I was asked to help, I said “yes.”

  I made lists and kept a detailed calendar. The demands on my time were becoming overwhelming. Sometimes I just didn’t have the energy to give each endeavor my best. As a perfectionist, I had a hard time accepting that. I couldn’t stand the thought of letting anyone down. Rather than eliminating some duties, I looked for more efficient ways to get it all done.