I’ve
been thinking lately that I could live in a tiny house—a house somewhere in the
neighborhood of 400 square feet. There’s a movement afoot—an entire community
of people who want to live more simply and are proving it by downsizing to
homes anywhere from 100 to 400 square feet.
Some even live off the grid by using solar panels to provide their
electricity. They save a ton of money,
have more freedom and impact the earth a lot less.
Now
don’t get me wrong, I love my creature comforts but I’ve always been interested
in simple living. I’m not sure where the
simple living mantra went in my mid-thirties when I, like everyone else I knew,
was busy climbing the corporate ladder and accumulating stuff as I went.
As
I got older though I noticed that I really didn’t want to accumulate stuff
anymore. Do you remember George
Carlin? He was a really funny comedian
and he had a monologue about “Stuff”.
Part of the monologue was “ If you didn’t have so much stuff, you
wouldn’t need a house, you could just walk around all day”. It cracked me up and then I got to thinking
about how right he was. It might be nice
to just walk around all day.
After
my husband and son died, and I was moving to New York City, I divested myself
of so many belongings so fast, it would make your head spin. Losing so much that was so dear to me made me
really see how unimportant this stuff was that I was hauling around from house
to house, state to state, city to city.
So I went about getting rid of as much of it as I could. The rest I put into 2 storage units and paid
monthly on those units for 1.5 years.
Living
in a tiny New York City apartment (400 square feet) was liberating. I couldn’t buy much because there was no
place to put it. Everything either had a
purpose or it did not make it through the front door. Just being “cute” or “pretty” did not make
the cut.
Now
I’ve moved back to North Carolina to a 2,000 square foot home, one of the
smallest I’ve lived in and it still feels too big. I’m down from 2 storage units to 1 with the
goal to have none by the end of 2016.
Will
I move into a tiny house? First I have
to cultivate a tiny house state of mind.
I’m working on that.
hi gerri - caryn here, rashida's friend. i stayed in a tiny house about 2 years ago for about 4 days. having everything you need in 150 square feet is so liberating. having only the things you "need" is going back to basics - food, shelter, clothes. living in a self-sufficient dwelling is also appealing. don't get me wrong girl, the composting toilet made me feel a little oogey and the bed in the loft was tricky -- going down that ladder at 2 am was scary! maybe air BnB one so you can see what it's like. if you can do a tiny NYC apartment, i think you would find the confines of tiny house to be liberating.
ReplyDeletei liked flipping through this blog - love yr writing.
i hope you and rashida are well. i think of you often.
-caryn