I’m writing this on Earth Day, 2011. I’ve watered the seedlings in the raised garden beds; the tomato plants have blooms, and the variety of squashes and pole beans are straining upward, still small but impressively strong, with their broad leaves facing toward the sun. Yesterday we feasted on the first truly awesome strawberries of this spring, red all the way through, without the slightly-too-tart tang of previous early-season pints. We tried to savor them, to make them last, to appreciate each strawberry for how it’s slightly different from the rest. The way the sparkling flavor and the seeds make it taste almost carbonated, like a festival, a joyous clarion heralding the long sunny days through the power of sensory memory.
Our raised beds are new. We erected them in an unexpected place: atop the concrete pad of our unused driveway. The symbolism was not lost on us.
The other day, an acquaintance posted a status update on Facebook that she was newly car-less, due to a failed transmission where the repair exceeded the cost of the vehicle itself. I added a comment to the thread, something along the lines of “try going intentionally car-free, and see how it feels! It might work for you,” probably followed by a smiling emoticon to make sure she understood I intended no pressure. (I’m sensitive to sounding like a tree-hugging crank.) Immediately after I posted that, though, someone else wrote, “WHATEVER. Living without a car in this age isn’t realistic in ANY WAY, unless of course you’re Amish. But even they have horse-drawn carriages.”
A little over one year ago, we sold our car and embarked on a new phase of our family’s story. Looking back over that year, I’m remembering the freedom we felt at making the decision to liquidate and downsize, to buy ourselves time during a time of financial crisis that had come to a head. It started with just a couple text messages floated in the middle of the day, back and forth with my husband, in which we decided not to replace the car we were selling. “Screw it,” I typed. “I’m thinking we should consider not getting another car at all. Let’s just outfit everyone for biking instead.” I was surprised when he wrote back, “Tell me more . . . ”
There were some hard lessons learned in the early days, straight off. One thing you realize is how important it is to fully plan each day’s outings, making sure you have all equipment and necessities for every task. My husband had to do the six-mile ride between our house and my son’s swimming lessons four times in one day, when he arrived sans swimsuit and towel at the first go-‘round. Ouch. We had a few other debacles that stick out, mostly during the long rainy winter, when there was someplace we had to be, with cold wet miles stretching between us and the destination, and not enough time to make alternate arrangements. I assure you, a rain-soaked skirt clinging to your thighs after getting caught in an unexpected downpour on the way to your oldest child’s choir performance is not an enviable experience.
Our learning curve has been long, not steep. I expected we’d have all this mastered by now, but we still cheerfully fail at every turn, sometimes in fantastic ways. It seems like each lesson squeaks uncomfortably through an opening cluttered with the comforts we once enjoyed. Oh, interesting, we can’t haul home four-foot-long planks of wood on the bike trailers, what now? Hmmm, can’t fit both preschoolers and that fifty-pound bag of chicken feed, I guess I’ll have to make this seven-mile bike ride again, alone next time . . .
I’ve written a lot about the ways simplifying has brought new color, beauty, and grace to our lives, but the real gift is much harder to put into words, but it is this: the year of strife has opened us to a way of living that is so much more reliant on how intertwined we are with our neighbors and friends. We had some dental and medical crises come up this year also, and because of our situation, we were open to some unconventional arrangements with our caregivers. Our dentist greets us with hugs; her staff has cared for our children for hours on end, with crayons on the floor and the kind of barefoot comfort that feels like family. My dentist jumped into her car in between patients and drove me to the endodontist. Just being open with your needs can result in surprisingly-loving connections with those you’d least expect. Our letter-carrier was reluctant to deliver the foreclosure notice she worried would devastate us, and even suggested we not sign for it. The diner owner sent us on our way after a rare meal out, trusting us to return after our debit card got unexpectedly declined (turns out it was a clerical error, whew.)
Once we took the bus to the supermarket, but found out that the bus we had taken to get there was the last bus running that route, and that we’d be stranded. There was a moment of regret and frustration with what seems to be at times a constant barrage of small obstacles, but then relief and comfort when we realized there were literally a half-dozen or more people who would be able to come scoop us up in an instant, whenever needed.
Social resources, for us, have proven more valuable to our lives than financial resources. Or rather, when financial resources are less available, social resources fill in the gap in a more rewarding way, like replacing a missing table leg with a gold-painted cherub holding its arm upright. Instead of finding a lid for the jar, you get a bouquet of flowers to put in it.
I don’t mean to overstate the case. What with our landlord’s foreclosure crisis, the scary era when we were waiting for biopsy results, and the thefts we’ve (thankfully, rarely) endured, there have been threats to safety and security coming from every direction. But it is no exaggeration to say that this has been the watershed year of our lives, in the best possible of ways. Things and people have fallen away, but what has taken occupation in exchange has been everything we didn’t know we needed.
The other day, we built new raised beds in our unused driveway. A truck dumped the delivery of beautiful soil into a black and loamy heap on the sidewalk, and neighbors came over with shovels, advice, cold beers, and spare seedlings. We’re all planning for a big harvest trade, maybe a “family” grill-out with all the folks on our ragtag block using the zucchinis soon to come in that charmingly vulgar, over-abundant way that they do. Our chickens have been loud but prolific, and true to the roots of Easter celebrations, there are plenty of eggs for all of us right now.
