The Art of Living Intentionally
I almost wrote “living simply” instead of “living
intentionally.” I wanted to write it. It's a phrase people use so often when
they speak of growing food or making their own beauty products or learning a
craft such as sewing or soap making.
But it's misleading.
To most people, the word “simple” means “easy.” And “easy”
means something that can be accomplished quickly and with little thought or
care.
So what is easy? Running to the supermarket and buying a bag of imported apples
or a dozen eggs for $3 is easy. Throwing away a ripped skirt and using
one-click, online ordering to have a new one shipped to your doorstep is easy.
Speeding through the drive-thru and feeding yourself from the Value Menu when
you're grumpy and exhausted from a long day at work is easy.
But when people think of “the simple life,” they picture
apple trees laden with ripe fruits. They picture hens pecking contentedly
around a yard. They picture homespun clothes and family meals where everyone is
talking, laughing, and piling their plates with made-from-scratch biscuits and
homegrown corn.
But achieving any one of those things is not simple. It's not easy. It's not
expedient or carefree or clean.
And as much as people may say they crave “the simple life”, what they really
seem to want is the Norman Rockwell version of that exact moment when the
result of a lot of very hard work finally reaches fruition. They want the apple
in all its gleaming, crisp sweetness, and they want it to be organic and local.
But they don't want the three or four years of waiting for the tree to produce
its first, small harvest. They don't want the fire blight and the coddling
moths and the pruning. They don't want the anxiety of whether the tree will
survive an ice storm. They don't want the yellow jackets that swarm the
overripe fruit.
I don't want most of those things, either. But I will
embrace them anyway, because they're part of the journey I've chosen for
myself. From raising chickens to keeping bees to cooking from scratch almost
every night, the things I do are not simple. But they are so, so rewarding.
That is why I have chosen to live intentionally.
So what does it mean to live intentionally?
Living intentionally means doing things on purpose, for a
purpose. It means learning to value experiences over stuff. It means redefining
“wealth” not as how much money you have or how many possessions you own, but
rather how content and happy you feel during each step of the journey that
takes you from a tiny seed planted in February to a pot of tomato sauce
simmering over a low flame in October.
To me, there is nothing more exciting than poring over seed
catalogs in the dead of winter—until my newly ordered seed packets arrive in
the mail. Then, there is nothing more exciting than poking those miniscule
seeds into warm soil and setting them under grow lights in my basement. After
that, there is nothing more exciting than watching the first leaves of the
first baby tomato push its way out of the dirt. Come April, when the plants are
literally bursting out of their little peat pots, I celebrate as I place each
tomato start out in the freshly turned earth of the garden. Then comes the joy
of the first flowers, the thrill of the first green fruits, and the joy of
seeing that faint, pinkish blush appear. Then, suddenly, all of your tomatoes
start ripening at once, and you're spending your Sunday afternoons chopping,
roasting, pureeing, and freezing them, and that makes you happy, too.
It would be so incredibly easy to just drive to the store
and buy a pound of tomatoes from Mexico for a few bucks. The fruits might even
sort of taste like a tomato, if only faintly. But I'll take the hornworms and
the blossom end rot and the endless weeding any old day for just one bite of a
dusky, earthy, perfectly ripe Cherokee Purple tomato. I'll take the flies and
the poop and the tragic attacks by predators for just one taste of a rich,
sun-colored yolk from one of my laying hens. I'll take some blindingly painful
stings to the face if it means I can have a small sample of golden honey from
my own hive.
I live intentionally for many reasons: because I want to
know where my food comes from; because I want to be a maker and grower and
creator; and because our systems of
industry are doing so much wrong to our world and all its creatures (including
each other). I want to opt out of those systems every chance I get.
Will a homegrown tomato save the world? Probably not. Not really. But it won't
bring further harm to the world, either. If everyone grew a tomato plant or
two, and ate only the tomatoes they could harvest from that plant, then
immigrant farm workers in Florida wouldn't earn $5 a day picking tomatoes while
getting doused in pesticides and herbicides. We will not die without ketchup.
But actual human beings will die because we feel entitled to ketchup.
It's a heavy way to think, but that's what intentionality is—thinking before
you buy, eat, or drink something. Thinking before you throw something away.
Thinking about what you're putting in and on your body; about what you're
sending down the drain; about what you're filling your mind with every night
before bed.
Obviously, no one can live on this earth without leaving footprints. I would be
pretty sad without butter, pasta, or avocados, and since I don't have a cow,
the ability to grow wheat, or the kind of climate that keeps an avocado tree
alive, I'm going to continue buying those things from the grocery store. I
can't make all my own clothes (yet), but I patch or repair what I can, and buy
gently used items rather than brand new ones. Is sewing a rip in a shirt the
most fun I've ever had? No, but there's something almost meditative about
spending half an hour with a needle, some thread, and some good music. The same
goes for the strange pleasure I derive from hanging my clothes out on a line to
dry or cleaning my house with some white vinegar, hot water, and a few drops of
lemon oil. All any of us can do is make the best choices we can possibly make
within our own means. Hint: the best choice is rarely the easiest or most
thoughtless choice.
Intentionality is about making connections—connections with
the earth, with the seasons, with animals, with insects, with tiny
microorganisms in the soil and behemoth thousand-year-old trees, and with
people, of course. If you can't make something yourself, at least learn about
where it came from. And if the story of its origin makes you sad or angry, then
choose to support a product or service that came from a place or idea that
fills you with joy or peace. And if that option isn't available to you, either,
then learn to do without, and find your contentment in the absence of that
thing.
I'm not encouraging you to deprive yourself of pleasure or
forgo the things you want. Living intentionally is about finding delight not
just in the reward, but in the work and sweat and pit-stops it took to get
there. It's about biting into the apple and laughing about the worm. It's about
tasting the honey and wearing that bee sting like a badge of honor. It's about
marveling at the tenacity of the weeds and the fragility of the carefully
cultivated flowers. It's about the blisters, yes. But it's also about the
bliss.
To connect with Kelsie, please visit her blog at: iNest
She can also be found on Instagram at: Kelsie.D.Gray
This is Week 26 of 52 Artists in 52 Weeks, we are half way through the year already! My goodness, how time flies when you're in the flow. Thank you for reading and sharing Kelsie's story today.
