Bottle or Box
I remember a time when the wine I bought cost around $30 bottle and I would drink it nightly without much thought to the extravagant nature of it. Dan and I would stay up late, wasting the night away with music piped through our monstrous home. We threw parties where we hired dance troops and fire dancers and took a month off of work to look for hot springs and rock-climb. Boy, those were some different times. Things were a bit like honey. And we consciously did all we could to walk away from it. We gave it up to start over, start a life in a run-down, dilapidated house with a nothing but W.O.R.K. written in the horizon, because it seemed like an authentic way to live. We knew how to work hard... right?!?
I think we might have been delirious when I look back at how willy-nilly we decided to give it all up, yet, I can't imagine living the life we use to. I remember both of us making separate lists of 30 things that were most important to us in life, and when we compared notes, we realized that, thankfully, our notes were similar but that we weren't really living that list. So, like Dan and I do naturally, we said "well, let's do it!" And there you have it - the impetus for change. The second list we made was "how will we make a living" list. Well, that one wasn't so congruous. Dan's #1 idea was to be a beach bum. Mine was to market some product via the internet. Since we were expecting our one and only child to be born, we knew that we would have to change the way we had worked side-by-side, as business partners. We assumed we would do like ol' Kevin Costner and "if they build it, they will come" and simply set about re-building our life, using our lists to guide us.
Holy crap it has been a lot of work!
Things use to be sooooo easy!
There have been many long nights where we have struggled with how busy and how broke we are. It seems we work from early in the morning until late into the evening. The cow needs to be milked and stalls need to be cleaned. Clean the chicken house, feed all the animals, change the water tanks, water the garden, mow the fields, fix the fences, fix the roof, fix the plumbing, fix the electrical, fix the cars.. nurture the child, dry the herbs, grind the wheat, make the cheese, harvest the food, feed the humans. Oh, and go to work... What??! Go to work?! Damn... what happened to "live off of the land?" Oh yeah... there was that one issue we never really resolved...
We don't pay someone $600 to wash our windows anymore. Nor do we buy rental houses at garage sales because "well, it seemed like a good investment..." But, Daisy runs naked into the garden every morning to pick her breakfast and she's growing like a weed under the sun. I work from home, selling a product on the internet so that I can maintain farm-life in my daily routine. My feet are often dirty and I drink wine that comes in a box that cost 85% less than before, but I find that life is feeding me in new ways.
I may be tired as hell, but my relationships with the world and the people in my life are real. If I think back to what we gave it all up for, it's happening.
There is no pretense.
I wish I had a pot of gold...but that was never on the list.
I think we might have been delirious when I look back at how willy-nilly we decided to give it all up, yet, I can't imagine living the life we use to. I remember both of us making separate lists of 30 things that were most important to us in life, and when we compared notes, we realized that, thankfully, our notes were similar but that we weren't really living that list. So, like Dan and I do naturally, we said "well, let's do it!" And there you have it - the impetus for change. The second list we made was "how will we make a living" list. Well, that one wasn't so congruous. Dan's #1 idea was to be a beach bum. Mine was to market some product via the internet. Since we were expecting our one and only child to be born, we knew that we would have to change the way we had worked side-by-side, as business partners. We assumed we would do like ol' Kevin Costner and "if they build it, they will come" and simply set about re-building our life, using our lists to guide us.
Holy crap it has been a lot of work!
Things use to be sooooo easy!
There have been many long nights where we have struggled with how busy and how broke we are. It seems we work from early in the morning until late into the evening. The cow needs to be milked and stalls need to be cleaned. Clean the chicken house, feed all the animals, change the water tanks, water the garden, mow the fields, fix the fences, fix the roof, fix the plumbing, fix the electrical, fix the cars.. nurture the child, dry the herbs, grind the wheat, make the cheese, harvest the food, feed the humans. Oh, and go to work... What??! Go to work?! Damn... what happened to "live off of the land?" Oh yeah... there was that one issue we never really resolved...
We don't pay someone $600 to wash our windows anymore. Nor do we buy rental houses at garage sales because "well, it seemed like a good investment..." But, Daisy runs naked into the garden every morning to pick her breakfast and she's growing like a weed under the sun. I work from home, selling a product on the internet so that I can maintain farm-life in my daily routine. My feet are often dirty and I drink wine that comes in a box that cost 85% less than before, but I find that life is feeding me in new ways.
I may be tired as hell, but my relationships with the world and the people in my life are real. If I think back to what we gave it all up for, it's happening.
There is no pretense.
I wish I had a pot of gold...but that was never on the list.
You're living an honorable life, be proud!
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