I have a confession to make. This is only the second post I’ve written here on SMART Living 365 in six months.
For someone who almost religiously wrote a post every single week for over a decade—who has written seven books and hundreds of articles across the last 35 years—that silence has felt strange. A little unsettling, if I’m honest. And while I’ve been busy and enjoying my life, somewhere in the middle of these silent months, a question floated up that I haven’t been able to shake: When does a writer stop being a writer? [Read more…]
A couple of weeks ago Thom and I drove to our house in Southern California that we had called “home” for sixteen years. Even though we called that property home, we actually lived in Tucson, AZ for the last three winters while renting that “former home” temporarily. Then after that we only ended up staying there for a few days on and off the rest of the year. However, after straddling both homes for three years, we decided it was time to make the decision to pick one over the other. And in spite of the fact that the one in So Cal was over twice as big (plus a two-car garage) as the one in Tucson, we chose to permanently make our tiny home in Tucson our residence for the foreseeable future.
About fifteen years ago my husband Thom and I began using the word “rightsize” to describe the lifestyle that we started practicing. At the time, we felt a strong motivation to create a more simple and minimal existence. So that led us to taking the popular step that many people refer to as “downsizing.” We didn’t need such a big house and certainly didn’t need all the stuff that we had accumulated over the years. But rather than calling it downsizing (which implies sacrifice) we decided to call it “rightsizing”. Rather than a focus on giving up things, we took steps to eliminate everything that wasn’t adding joy and contentment to our lives. And naturally, it wasn’t just about getting rid of stuff we owned, it was mostly choosing to focus on the things that truly mattered to us. 
For my entire life I have avoided the very idea of suffering. It’s not that I don’t feel sympathy for others when I witness others going through challenging times, but as for me—nope! With the arrogance of youth, I remained convinced that even when things looked disastrous in my life, I could always work them out. Like Pollyanna, I didn’t deny bad things happen to good people, I just felt certain that with the right approach anything could be overcome. Then when I came upon the New Thought philosophy, it gave me the tools (or at least the narrative) about how to do just that. But you know what? I’m much older now and I can’t help but look around and notice that people are suffering through no apparent fault of their own. Sometimes, no matter what you do, stuff happens. And yes, if I’m honest, there have been times when I have suffered physically and mentally. Maybe that’s why when I came across Richard Rohr’s new book, The Tears of Things—Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage I knew there was something there for me to consider.
We’re back—not exactly home, but back. That might seem like a strange way to put it, but we aren’t exactly “home” just yet. We are however back on our home continent after spending several months in Europe. Our trip was great with no major problems. Everything flowed smoothly, we stayed healthy and enjoyed some wonderful sites and experiences. Also good was favorable weather, good food and nice people. Still, after several months of travel we were ready to come home. But where is our home now anyway? 
This summer Thom and I escaped to Germany for nearly a month. Why Germany? Well, we had never spent any time there in the past and figured it could be an interesting place to explore while enjoying cooler temps. (Remember we live in the hot desert southwest, so this is an ongoing plan.). We did start our trip in Berlin because friends we had met on another trip lived there and urged us to come. But otherwise, we headed to southern Germany usually known as Bavaria and focused on small towns. Not surprisingly, there are many things unique to Germany that we had not experienced before and decided to share those that seemed most interesting. 
Years ago, I started journalling. I’ve done it so long I don’t remember when I began—the 80’s? The inspiration came after reading Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way and I just kept going. In the beginning I did it because it allowed me to put my thoughts on paper and think about what I was thinking about. Memories, ideas, lessons, regrets, celebrations…you name it. The last 40 years of life has been largely contained in those pages. Then interestingly enough I came across a couple of articles that explained how keeping notes like that are a wonderful way to “keep the days from blurring together.” Ever felt like that has happened to you? 