Simple

When I was young, not 20 young, but under 7 young, the world was a beautiful and amazing and magical place.  Outside was warm and sunny.  The grass smelled sweet or freshly mown.  The trees whispered with the wind.  The sunlight twinkled through the branches.  The ground felt inviting and the grass tickled and the tiny flowers hidden in the weedy lawn became wonderful bouquets for the house.

An afternoon of making mudpies or playing in a sandbox was pure joy.  Hours and hours of intense creating.  Or pulling stuff from a ragbag and turning it into the most amazing play clothes, making friends into cowboys or cops and robbers or kings and queens or whatever story had sparked an ongoing, freestyle rendition of pretend.

My father made weird toys and that was always a weird hit in the neighborhood.  My favorite was the stick horse that had a rolly-wheel on the ground end that was set up to hit something plastic with metal things so it made a clacking sound--not unlike the playing cards on bike spokes.  He also made stilts and wooden guns and wagons and such.  It was as fun to watch them being made as it was to play with them.  Such things were never projects, but were the reusing of scraps from more serious constructions.

We had a dog--we always had a dog, and the dog was always an inside/outside dog, because while dogs were animals and should be outside, if it was cold or wet or too hot or scary or (any excuse worked) it could come in.  We occasionally had a dog that was mostly a stray.  We left out food because its hard to be a stray--its not like being a wild dog at all--no food sources that are consistent and hard to find water with all the fences and gun-bearing stray-haters.  Those dogs didn't come in, didn't want to, but they ended up with covered/protected areas--either in the garage (when did that dog door get in the garage, anyway) or in a house made from the same scraps that furnished toys.

When I was young, we went to the country a lot.  We went almost weekly and spent the weekend.  We drove up the back way; a 3 hour drive on curvy, narrow, pockmarked roads, the last part gravel, frequently in the dark on Friday after Dad got off work.  When it was dark, my sister and I would share the back seat, blankets and pillows, suitcases between the seat so we didn't roll off in a sudden stop.  I remember sleeping, the vibration of the car, the strangely scratchy cloth upholstery. the smell of cigar smoke and the sound of the wind hitting the little window open by the drivers seat.  (When did the little window stop?  Why did it ever exist?)  I never remember getting there.  I always just woke up at grandmas.  But I do remember sometimes waking up to see a black sky full of stars while hearing my parents voices.  I miss that scratchy upholstery.  I miss those stars.  I worry that seatbelts stole something from my children's memories--not their safety, but maybe their feeling of safety.

I loved falling asleep on a blanket in the sun in the spring.  It was the best.  Maybe not better than the Drive-in theater, but I would love that feeling again, while I will skip the drive-in.

Jello salad, and macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, devils food cake, fried catfish eggs, wilted green salad--those are so simple, and yet food was so wonderful.

Simple.  Why was life so simple so much of the time, why do we complicate it so much as adults.  Not a single home back then was "up-dated".  No one cared if the color scheme was current, or the furniture matched the decorations or even each other.  People didn't redecorate, they bought a bed when they needed one more for another person, or for if one was broken and couldn't be fixed, or if it was--god forbid--stolen.  No one donated perfectly good furniture so they could redecorate.  If they donated, they no longer needed it.  Someone had grown up and moved out, or they had "passed".

In a simpler life, we are not "consumers".  We are just living our lives.
We are not being trendy to compete with the neighbors.
We are not hoarders, we are taking our time to find a new use for what we don't need right now.  Sometimes we make something new with the parts.  Sometimes we give it to someone that just found out that they needed something we no longer need.  Sometimes we are just grieving a little longer for the loss of the reason to keep the thing.
We are not working constantly so we can buy more stuff.
We are not buying more to fill the hole in our lives--that feeling of purposelessness that grows from being rudderless, unconnected, lacking in something.
We are being ourselves.
We are alive.
We are being present in every moment of our life.
We are simply alive.