Bed

As a teenager I was one of those people who could happily sleep until 10 or 11 in the morning, or even until noon.  A total night of uninterrupted deep sleep.  In those years my favourite way to read was on the bed on my stomach, propped up on my elbows with the book in front of me.

This continued into my twenties and thirties and forties.  The problem was that is was a deep sleep and very difficult to wake up from.  My alarm would go off and it felt like the idea of moving and getting out of bed was almost beyond my capability.  I remember one period of my life where I had two alarms set, one across the room that would keep up an awful buzzing sound until I got up and shut it off.  Even then I could listen to it for a long time before I could convince myself to move.

Getting up got much easier as I aged.  I might take a bit of time to get up and moving but I did it without a lot of fussing and moaning.

Now that I'm old I'm again finding it really difficult to get moving in the morning.  I can lie comfortably for a couple of hours thinking I should get up but just feeling unwilling to make the effort to move.  Often what finally gets me moving is the need to use the bathroom.  My bed is without doubt my favourite  place in my home.  I read there,  I watch TV there.  I sometimes eat there while watching TV.  I do my email there.

Interior Design

 

I like looking at design magazines.  Mainly I'm looking at the floor plans of the homes and the placement of windows, patios and such.  To a degree the layout of furniture.  Lowest on my interest list are the colours, draperies and decorations.  (Although I occasionally see a room that I think is really lovely.). But what always comes to mind when I see a room filled with elaborate light fixtures and paintings and art and objects dumped everywhere is that these designers and not people who have to do their own vacuuming and dusting.

Use Again

 

Recently I bought some dumplings for lunch and the bottom part of the container was a nice oval plastic dish.  I always hate to discard things like that - I start wondering if I could make use of it somehow, perhaps as a serving dish for snacks or candy.  That line of thought of course took me back to my days as a student when I had my first apartment.  It was furnished with hand me downs from my family and friends, including an easy chair and shelves that a friend had rescued from someone's garbage.  

I think I was just as happy, or happier, with all those things than with anything "better" and "brand new" that I have had since.

Even before my formal self-identification as a minimalist I liked "making do" and "repurposing".  Not wasting or spending unnecessarily was something I learned growing up.  My mother's "good" dishes were actually a set that she had collected piece by piece as a gas station giveaway.  That was something that was still happening in the 1960's - my first set of dishes in my apartment were another gas station giveaway. 

I remember jam and peanut butter coming in drinking glasses.  Or people just used jam jars as glasses.  I remember towels and face cloths coming as giveaways in boxes of laundry soap.

I think nowadays with IKEA and Dollarama and such stores it's easy and inexpensive just to go and buy what you need.  No point looking for discards from family.  No need to reuse and repurpose.

In my days of major downsizing twenty-five years ago it was the more expensive and "good" things that I usually chose to remove.  It was the basic, functional things that I tended to keep, many of them from my days in that first apartment.

Library

 

I can still remember, so clearly, the day my mother told me I was going with the neighbour kids to join this thing called a library.  I was very young but must have been old enough to be able to read.

I was amazed and thrilled to find that I could borrow books.

The town library at that time was up above a store on the main street of town so it couldn't have been large.  I remember when the new library in its own building opened.

I'm still a regular user of the public library and I can't imagine stopping.  

The recent closures of the Toronto Library due first to the pandemic and then the hacking incident were an unneeded reminder of just how much the library means to me.

"It Gets Better"

 

This is said a lot, is actually a "thing" that is said to comfort people, especially young people, who are being bullied.

It is true, it does get better when you're older and away from school years which is where most bullying seems to happen.  Not to minimize bullying in the workplace or relationships.

But "better" does not mean there are no consequences, no aftereffects.  

Those colour your whole life.

A Casual Cruelty

Many years ago I had a friend who owned three cats. He lived in an apartment and the cats were completely indoor creatures.  The apartment was their whole world.

One cat was completely intimidated by the other two.  One in particular was a real bully.  My friend had to leave a closet sliding door open because the third cat spent her entire life on the top shelf of that closet looking out but rarely leaving.  I don't know when she was able to slip out and eat or use the litter.

Eventually the two other cats died and she was left alone as the only cat.  She was a different creature - friendly and out and about all the time.  She was happy.

Then my friend decided he wanted more than one cat and brought another cat home.

So it was back to the closet shelf for the rest of her life.

I thought then, and still do, that for a person who claimed to love animals it was just simply an incredibly cruel and thoughtless thing to bring another animal into a home where she had for such a little time been free and happy..

It was obvious what would happen when he brought another cat into the home.

I never felt that same about my friend.  This was no doubt one of the reasons that the friendship ended.

 

Full Retreat

"...a man in full retreat from life."

                                                  ? Kurt Vonnegut ?

I almost certain that's a quote from a Kurt Vonnegut book but I can't remember which one and I had no success trying to search it.

In any case, it's a line I've been thinking about recently in regard to my own life.  I doubt it's unique to me, and certainly not true for everyone, but I have been retreating from the world for several years now.  Partly this is because of getting older but I think it's also because aging and being retired has allowed basic parts of my personality to come to the fore.

I think one of the first indicators was when I stopped going to movies because I had come to find audiences just too annoying to tolerate - partly because of their behaviours but also because I just didn't want to be stuck in a room with a bunch of people.   Also having to be there at a set time seemed a bother in a world where most movies appear so quickly on at-home media.  I remember in my thirties running out to see almost every movie the week it opened in the city and at some point I stopped feeling that need.  My feelings about live theatre, concerts etc are much the same, if not more negative.

I have never liked parties. Even with groups that I know well I tend to be shy in larger gatherings so I end up hanging around not talking much and just waiting until I can leave without seeming rude.  I'm reasonably comfortable in groups of up to six or so.

I am someone who has always been very comfortable being on my own.  Back in my twenties and thirties at times I used to feel lonely and long for someone to share my life with but it's been a long time now since I have felt that. (Even then, when I was "dating" someone I would feel annoyed that they would feel that they had a claim on my time.)  I still enjoy getting together with the (limited number of) people in my life but usually I am very happy when the occasion is over and I can go home and be on my own.

I dread having to interact with people.  I show up for medical and dental appointments because it's the reasonable and necessary thing to do.  I put off home repairs and do work arounds with issues as long as I possibly can since I don't want to deal with service people.  

So yes, I'm in full retreat.  This is aided by the online world that is so easily accessed - I can feel in contact with the outside world but not have to deal with it face to face.

I'm not concerned about this.  I'm generally happy at home (except of course when my neighbours make noise!) and I don't miss the things I'm avoiding.   It's like travelling - I know people get a lot out of seeing the world, and I have made a few trips, but when I'm away I'm always waiting to go home.  

In any case, you can't have, do, see, experience everything.  In the end you need to do what's right for you.