“Simplicity in its essence demands neither a vow of poverty nor a life of rural homesteading. As an ethic of self-conscious material moderation, it can be practiced in cities and suburbs, townhouses and condominiums. It requires neither a log cabin nor a hairshirt but a deliberate ordering of priorities so as to distinguish between the necessary and superfluous, useful and wasteful, beautiful and vulgar.” – David Shi
Author: <span>Rebecca Matheson</span>
There is an article today in Psychology Today about the best age to have a baby.
I’m 26.
I have a baby.
26 is not that young, as much as I don’t feel terribly grown up (do you ever?).
I was 22 when I got married. I had a plan (in an ideal world). At least 4 years married, at least 2 years in a career and hopefully to travel overseas before I had a baby and the novelty of the plan paid off. We’re coming up to five years married, I’ve worked 2 and half years in Design, enough to push me to a midweight – not far off senior role in the studio I was working in and enough to establish myself comfortably in freelancing to deal with pretty much any job I get thrown. I have made enough mistakes to be careful. I got to travel to Vietnam.
Why 26?
The age is arbitrary. What do you want to do with your life? What’s important? These are great questions. And to be honest, there is still SO much I want to do with my life and these things haven’t changed since having Claire.
Having a baby has made me value time so much more than previously. Um, what the hell did I used to do with all my spare time?
Claire is a great sleeper . This helps my introverted being get stuff done and remain somewhat sane. I am bessotted and distracted at times, but life continues. I’m married to great guy. I have good family around, a community that I am invested in and invests in me.
I am still working out how to be less introspective, but I can only suggest that my heart has been further blown open for greater things.
Why would I want to have a later start on this… you know, at age 34? When I can have it now?
There are three big lies.
- I am what I have.
- I am what other people say about me.
- I am what I do.
We spend much too much time fighting these. They are worth fighting.
(I am currently reading: Simple Spirituality – Christopher L. Heurertz, the identification of three lies come out of something Henri Nouwen wrote)
I was reading 1 Kings 17 this morning… I’m not sure why, anyway, this is the story of the widow who feeds Elijah – the one whose bread and oil don’t dry up.
A few commentaries that Google produced talked pretty much about the ‘faith’ of the widow. Which is the story as I’ve pretty much always thought about it. I’m not sure this is entirely a story about ‘great faith’.
The widow is obedient, she is commanded by God (prior to Elijah getting there) to feed this guy. Then this miraculous never ending food supply thing happens. THEN her son gets sick and dies. Elijah beseeches God on her behalf and the son lives and that’s when we get this:
“Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.â€
This doesn’t seem like she had great confidence prior? It seems she was just getting by but wasn’t quite convinced it was God at work? (no?). Obedient yes? Great faith… not so sure?
This widow was given food when she was starving (one form of life) and then her son was given actual life (breath).
So do you then take a story like this metaphorically or at least in a messianic pointing sense and go with the widow as ‘us’, Elijah representing Jesus and there you have us: being sustained with food, and then Jesus advocating on our behalf and bringing actual life – a story of heaven – now but not yet?
or I’m a heretic. Perhaps she had great faith in God, just not in men… which is a whole other can of worms.
Recognising the characteristics of a Enneagram One, we don’t celebrate small achievements well. The inner critic is ‘strong with this one’. And so here is a small celebration of some things I’ve done recently that I have spent a long time not doing and a long time wanting to do.
1. Meet my neighbour
We moved to this house back in February. After living on a main road with almost never seeing our neighbours we are now in a court. A court off a court. You can’t get much more ‘communal’ than that. Not that it’s a very communal street at all. I had every intention of going to meet at least one of my neighbours and it never happened. You know when you leave these things a few months, you’re no longer ‘new’ and it just gets more and more awkward (in my head). About a month ago those neighbours moved out. The house has been empty since then. Yesterday I met Mark. He is my neighbour. He was pulling down the fence/fixing the pailings between our two houses. He came to the door to ask if it was fine to walk across our property. He and his wife (whom I have not met) are fairly similar in age to us. When I was heading out to get groceries I had another brief chat to him. They own the place and they are renovating. I have met my neighbour.
2. Composting
Another little thing. We live in an area where you get three bins: recycling, rubbish and green-waste/composting. We have major issues with our rubbish as in this region you get a half size bin and it is emptied once every two weeks. This is a great theory and works to reduce waste until you have a baby and nappies OR you go on holidays and forget to put your bin up. I am currently using our greenwaste bin to store excess (humbug). Regardless, our lovely rental came with it’s own, rather robust compost bin which I haven’t been using. When I first moved in I put some scraps in a bucket and erm, I am embarrassed to say that the bucket is still under the sink (I don’t want to know about it). But as of this week I have been using a small open top container on the bench and when it fills up I take it out. I am composting.
3. Journalling
As mentioned in my previous post, I have started journalling again, after a much too long hiatus. This also means I am spending somewhat regular time reading my bible and praying and reflecting a bit more on life. Something I used to do regularly and something I find I need to do, to main some kind of inner clarity.
4. Cooking
I am a lazy cook. I can cook okay, but we eat a lot of pasta. Pasta sauce often just from the jar. I have had a long standing goal to plan some meals and so consequently eat better, spend less. Yesterday I did just that. I roughly planned some meals. Went shopping. Sadly the local fruit and veg shop isn’t open Mondays – which I’d forgotten. But best of all: I didn’t get bogged down in a system (which is what always thwarts me… wanting to instigate some kind of comprehensive database so I can plug in the meal I want to cook and spit out a shopping list – which is still terribly appealing and I do have a marvelous app that will do so, it just need a lot of work to get it functional). Last night I made gnocchi from scratch. And I have some other different food planned for the rest of the week. Nothing too daunting, just different. Geoff does probably most of the cooking, but I’d like to learn to cook better: some simple, tasty, healthy meals – variety. Two of my sisters are great at this and the other one is a pastry chef/librarian-in-training (I don’t even want to pretend to compete!).
I find that routine is truly helpful for instigating stuff in my life. With a baby now on a routine (and boy does she have a freakish inner clock) I am set up with regular blocks of time and if I intentionally do certain things in those blocks of time, things get done.