LETTING GO. MOVING ON.

Is this not the age old problem with trying to create a simple life. What can I let go? What can I live without? Where in my life is there excess?

In creating my own simple life I am constantly asking myself what I can edit next. As we come into the holiday season, and I read article after article about the billions of dollars people are spending on more stuff, to give to people who have lots of stuff, I am wondering when we can say we have enough.

LIVING ALONE

"It's amazing living alone. I'm very luckey. It's like a refuge."   Paloma Faith

Living alone has taught me skills that I doubt I would have ever learned had I remained married or sought out a boyfriend. I've lived alone now for over ten years, twelve to be exact.

When my husband and I first divorced, I wondered how I was ever going to be able to live by myself and do all the things I enjoyed doing. I wondered if I would ever be able to sit and watch TV in the evenings by myself (turns out I discovered I didn't like TV that much), or if I would ever be able to go out to eat by myself (this as it turns out was pretty easy for me). I seem to enjoy all the things I used to do with him, but much more.

SIMPLE LIVING - SMALL SPACES

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify. Simplify.           Henry David Thoreau

I have loved Thoreau for decades. His message of simplicity always rang true for me. And don't get me started about his adorable house in the woods. Alas. No house in the woods for this girl (yet), and my simplicity is a work in progress, but I am convinced that to grow old peaceful and to be able to retire in some way, simplicity - at least a more simple existence is called for.

FRIENDS ON THE PORCH

"The summer night is like a perfection of thought." 

Read Wallace Stevens' Poem, The House Was Quiet and The World Was Calm

Summer is winding down in Ohio. In another month it could be so chilly here that a sweater will be necessary, or I suppose it could be hot enough to turn on the air conditioners again. It is Ohio, and the saying goes, if you don't like the weather, just wait - it'll change.

It's Friday before the long Labor Day Weekend. My friend Julie and I sat on my front porch this evening, waxed philosophically about life, and ushered out summer with gin and tonics and laughter - soul repaired.

A DREAMER OF DREAMS

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream another dream." (C.S. Lewis)

Goal setting has been on my mind lately. I make lists of goals and revise and make new lists. I do this all year long, and the other day as I was writing the date, I realized: it's August. The year is almost over.