Category Archives: Downshifting

Another One Bites the Dust

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File this under ‘how to save money so you can buy a boat’, ‘downsizing’, or ‘preparing to cruise’, whichever you prefer. Mike and I are trying to live more frugally lately and this means that at times we have to make choices. Suffice to say I ran smack up against my definition of self, otherwise known as ‘ego’, this week. Turns out this whole idea of saving money is making me a pretty cheap date.

Recently 3 seemingly unrelated things happened: We sold my Mazda van, and our daughter moved to an apartment in Seattle, on her own once more. She left her 1994 Toyota Camry behind forever, sitting in our driveway. Then our son came home for the summer. I had been driving his cute little Toyota Matrix, a car both versatile and attractive. Astute readers will see the handwriting on this wall by now.

This is what I usually drive. Cute, versatile.

When a son returns home for the summer, he wants his car and because the car belongs to him (and I promised he could have it back) I am currently without vehicle. I need to get to work. We considered our options, including riding the bus (but I have to find a way to the bus stop) and buying a scooter to be ridden in the summer. Cute, but not very versatile. Trouble is, we don’t want to replace one vehicle with another. That’s not part of our plan.

“But wait!”, you may think. “Don’t you have the old Camry?”. Oh. Yes. We. Do. Let me tell you about this car. We bought it for $5000 when our daughter was a Junior in highschool. She has driven it for 10 years. Driven it only. Not actually cared for it. It has 270,000 miles on it (Long live Toyota!). It has had several minor skirmishes with various fences, gates, and other vehicles and apparently we don’t believe in spending money fixing cosmetic things on old cars.  Think of the damage as war wounds. The windshield is cracked, the doors don’t lock properly, the windows will roll down but then won’t roll up, steering is decidedly wavy, the dashboard is cracked, and it leaks like a sieve… as in there was a small lake on the passenger’s side of the car and Mike actually found large mushrooms growing in the back. I am not making this up.

The Camry was a fine looking automobile. That's past tense.

 

Understand, we have never driven new cars, believing a new car to be a profound waste of money. We do not even drive late model cars, as a general rule. We pretty much see cars as a means of transportation. We like them reliable, safe, inexpensive, and fuel efficient. So we don’t really think of cars as being reflections of our true selves, but there’s a limit and I thought I’d reached it when faced with this transportation issue.

I contemplated driving the Camry. Mike had spent considerable time and energy drying it out and cleaning it up. But still, it’s a car from 1994. I don’t even remember that long ago. I don’t think Andrew even existed yet.  I thought about clients and colleagues sizing me up as I pulled into the parking lot in this ‘vehicle’. I thought about the fact that as a middle aged woman, I am already part of a segment of the population that people don’t take very seriously, as though my usefulness as a human being is nearing its expiration date. (If you think this isn’t true, you are either not a middle aged woman, you are not paying attention, or both.) In short I was thinking, ‘What will people think of me?’. I ran smack up against ego, once more! Damn! Will it never end? Where is the part of me that gives less than a rat’s ass about the judgments of others? I know she’s around here somewhere…

I contemplated driving the car to the park and ride, taking the bus to work. It would actually be fine as it stops just a few blocks from my office and I would enjoy the walk. That was the plan for today.

Then I found myself driving to the park and ride in pouring rain, without an umbrella. I would get soaked walking the few blocks to my office. Unacceptable. So I drove to work. And you know what? It wasn’t bad. I studiously ignored any looks from other drivers. Maybe there weren’t any. I’ll never know. There is a sunroof and great visability in that car; much better visability than the Matrix. And the sound system is terrific! I pulled into the parking lot with my hearing aids vibrating to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’.

Can I allow my self-imposed persona of the professional woman who drives above-average looking, versatile cars give way to the part of me that wants to be frugal for the sake of living the rest of our lives on our own terms? Yep. I can. I’ve always been a bit of a rule breaker, even when I’ve made the rules myself. Another one bites the dust, indeed!

My new ride!

 

Regrets? I’ve Had a Few.

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Cement leaf, cast from our Big Leaf Maple tree.

I think in a previous post I may have made some kind of grandiose statement to the effect that there is nothing I regret having thrown out in our attempts to downsize and restructure the way we live. I believe I may have implied, or perhaps directly stated, that I’m  actually happy I have rid myself of all the many truckloads of stuff that now languishes somewhere in the thrift shops of the world.  I would like to amend that statement now. That statement is not precisely true. In fact, just today I realized I had thrown out something that  I really wish I had kept because, as I feared, I now want to use it. Isn’t there some kind of saying to the effect that the moment one gets rid of something, one needs it?

What is this very important item, the intrigued reader wonders? Why, it’s a completely unopened aqua blue mosquito netting, made to drape over a bed. It’s not a high quality one, but I bought it because I found it for less than 3$, loved the color, and I figured someday I would either use it, or would give it as a gift. What it represents to me now is yards and yards of gauzy fabric in a perfect shade of aquamarine.

The problem is that I craft. It’s not a constant problem,  I don’t always make things, but occasionally I get a wild hair and begin working with different materials in a creative sort of way. In the past I have worked with fabric, photography,  mosaic, and cement. I’ve made some pretty nifty things with those materials, and always I have had to spend some time gearing up by learning about the materials and what they will do together, etc. In other words, I play with them; sometimes lots of them. I have to learn what the materials will do before I can make them do what I want.

Simple mosaic on top of a garden wall.

And that’s the space I’m in now, and that’s why I save so many things. I never know what I might do with them. I never know when the urge is going to strike, the artist’s muse can strike at any time, unpredictably. I like to be prepared. And it’s hard to be prepared when you don’t exactly know what you will need!

Just before the storm, it struck me that when we begin living on a boat and cruising around, I really have nothing to offer others that’s worth much in terms of selling or bartering for goods or services. I mean, Mike can fix anything electrical or computer oriented. He’s also pretty good at engines. He’s a guy’s guy when it comes to those kinds of things. In his career he started out in electronics and ended up writing computer applications. He’s all over that stuff.

I, on the other hand, am a psychotherapist.  I can tell you right now that I am NOT going to be offering those services to other cruisers. Those days will be gone by the time we get to cast off. Cruisers who need therapy will be referred to the local village shaman. So I need something else to offer. What do I actually enjoy doing that might be worth something to others? And is there something I could even sell through this website that might make a little money for the cruising kitty?  And I came up with a nice little idea that involves making certain things with wool felt.

Dale Chihuly glass, photo taken at the Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, then played with on the computer.

So now I’m fully invested in the development of this idea and  I’m excited to play with all the pretty colors of wool roving. I want to use the wool roving with different fabrics to see what works for this idea, so I NEED that mosquito netting now and it is long gone. Frankly, I was just about fit to be tied when I remembered that not only would it be perfect for the experimenting I want to do, but it is even the right color and there would have been plenty of it, giving me a good supply to work with if my idea bore fruit. My knickers are really in a twist about it. It’s not that I cannot find more, it’s that I already had it once and it feels like a considerable waste of resources to go out and find/buy more.

Now when I face getting rid of more stuff I’m going to do so  with a little fear and loathing because I would much rather use things I already own than try to go find them again. This is the same argument that allows me to keep things that I currently have no use for, which completely flies in the face of the ‘purging’ mentality. And the ‘if you ‘ve had it for more than one year and haven’t used it…’ rule does not apply here. Frankly, that rule just never applies to craft supplies. But who knows what will become material for crafting? You can never tell.  I had that mosquito netting for at least 2 years.  Come to think of it, there’s a sarong I wish I had kept, and a couple of silk scarves as well.

Rats. It’s going to take me some time to untwist my knickers over this.

Cement birdbath, the product of many hours of play.

 

The Doldrums of Winter

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When the power is out, there is time to do things like build a Snow Queen.

My usual routine of posting something every few days has been decidedly interrupted by a winter storm that I have determined must be called ‘the doldrums of winter’.  After posting how lovely the place looked with all the snow, I thoughtlessly wished it would stay around for awhile. Never did I realize how my powers of manifestation would be abused!  We entered into a storm cycle that left us literally withOUT power for 4 days, with a large hole in our kitchen window, and a yard that looks like a cyclone thundered through. And the snow did, indeed, linger through all of this.

It is this time without electricity, during the darkness and cold of winter, that I am referring to as the ‘doldrums’. Sailors will recognize that term as referring to the areas of low pressure around the equator that are famous for having little to no wind. Sailboats can sit for days, or even weeks, until the wind, their source of power, returns. I’m imagining some sailors have been driven insane by this waiting.

I’m reading Miles Hordern’s book Sailing the Pacific, his story of sailing from New Zealand to Chile and back by himself. In his book, he describes his experience of the doldrums thus:

” There was nothing to do. Or perhaps, I could do nothing. I turned on the radio, but its talk was of a world I no longer knew. A book was hopeless: I could seldom read a sentence before my concentration dissolved. …Again and again I found myself climbing to the deck….Each time I hoped that finally there might be something there…..But each time there was nothing.”

I believe this aptly describes Mike’s behavior during this brief time of living without electricity and internet service while the storm raged on. The word ‘raged’ here means the sound of exploding limbs, falling trees, and continued snow. Mike was actively involved in ‘waiting’, which everyone knows is a verb of action. He waited at the window, watching. He waited outside, until I got just a little upset at him for wandering around underneath the deadly trees and called to him in a rather loud voice to come inside. He talked on the cell phone to our neighbors to coordinate experiences and wonder out loud when the power would be restored, when another limb might hit the house, whether a tree would fall. Would our little enclave of a few houses warrant the attention of the power company? Did they KNOW we were powerless? How long would we have to wait? Days? Weeks? The stillness that was usually my husband was nowhere to be found. Perhaps men are like this when their homes are threatened.

The remains of the birch tree.

I, on the other hand, was the essence of feminine patience. I sat placidly by the window, doing crafts by lamplight, occasionally getting up to stoke the fire. It was as though I was gestating in some way, although what I would be giving birth to is beyond me at this point. I hope I am creating here a dramatic enough picture. The exploding trees interested me in a sad kind of way, but I felt deeply the fact that I had absolutely no power to do anything about the storm. It would do its devilry to our trees and property, and then we would clean up later. My birch tree was snapped in two pieces. I barely batted an eyelash. My smoke trees were smashed to smithereens by huge branches. I will recover.  We were warm, dry, fed, and together. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs had never been better met. It’s true that should a tree land on our house, we could be injured, but worrying about it would not change that. Why this logic generally escapes me when it comes, say, to my children, is beyond me. Still, I sat smugly enjoying the slowness of life.

A hummingbird on my frozen rhododendron. We kept our feeders full during the storm.

In fact, when the electricity came back on yesterday, I was a bit disconcerted at first. And then I felt a little mournful. It’s not that I don’t like having the convenience because, after all, I am not crazy. But I do love those times when life is pretty simple and small. Having a power outage makes life very small and contained, and only the basic things are important. Now that the power is back, we live large again. In some ways, this is unfortunate.

Somewhere underneath these branches are my beautiful mature smoke trees, sacrificed to the god of winter.