a simple dream

In May, I read a book written by Alice Vincent called Why Women Grow. I spotted it at the library and got it out on a whim, not really expecting it to have such a profound impact on me. But it did – even though I have never had an affinity for gardening and all the succulents I’ve naïvely tried to grow have died slow and painful deaths on my windowsill. I had never felt particularly inspired to garden, but this book explored gardening as a concept that might alter your entire way of living. And I found that deeply inspiring.

Alice Vincent touched on a lot of thoughts I had been grappling with since finishing university and “entering the workforce,” as it were. My Big Adult Job™ was not a conventional one: I wasn’t working a full forty-hour week and I knew I never wanted to get to that stage, but I felt like a fake worker for getting that time off, and an entitled person for wanting to keep it that way. Why did I feel bad for wanting to slow down – for wanting to dedicate my time to the small, simple things that brought life pleasure? I started to wonder: what if these minuscule changes and mundane actions could also be acts of defiance against a world that does not value them?

“All of us have to live in a world built upon deeply ingrained patriarchal, capitalist and white supremacist structures; even to imagine a way of living that counters these, let alone undergo a process of bringing it to life, is an admirable thing.”

Alice Vincent

I understand that this is a privileged position to be in. Many people want – and need – their full-time jobs in order to live, and while I have felt the pressures and frustrations of money many times, I’m very lucky to have the support of my family which means I can remain comfortable even on a lower income. I am both guilty and grateful for this, but I think it’s time to stop dithering about my feelings and just enjoy it while I’m here. I won’t be in this job, this circumstance, this life, forever! Isn’t it a more “productive” use of my time to explore what I find fulfilling rather than berate myself for my supposed moral failings? 

Ugh – easier said than done. And that’s why I’m starting this series. Because unlearning all that capitalist bullshit is hard, and by no means linear. Some days I feel utterly joyous and grateful to be alive, and the next I feel like I should put a reminder in my calendar for “END OF THE WORLD”. On those days, finding pleasure in the little things feels pretty impossible, and that’s okay. I don’t want this to be some vacuous, incessantly optimistic string of twee inspirational quotes (ick – I can’t imagine anything worse). I want this to be a real, logistical, mundane exploration of how to live each day of your life. 

That being said, here is a quote – one of my favourites from Why Women Grow:

Sometimes I get so caught up in the notion of what life might be that I forget the meaty matter of it around us, the conversations up and down the stairs, the drifting light of the sun between clouds refracted through a windowpane. And in these times the garden roots me: it is very difficult to think about what will come when faced with a flower that will only be there for a few days. I garden for many reasons: for solace, for joy, for release, for connection. I garden to force myself to be in the moment, to encounter daily wonder, to solve problems and make good. I garden to remind myself I am small, and I garden to remind myself that I matter.”

I realised that Alice Vincent’s book was not the first time I had encountered this kind of idea; it was there when I read Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, and when I watched About Time, and when I read Anne of Green Gables as a young girl. One of Anne’s more well-known quotes reads: “Dear old world, you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.” Easy for a fictional character to say! But Anne also says this after (spoilers) experiencing deep sorrow – her adoptive father has died, and she walks back to her home after visiting his grave and marvels at the living world around her. I hope I can have as much strength as Anne, to witness and acknowledge and take joy in the beauty of life, even with the presence of death.

This series of writing might be for me more than anyone else, but perhaps my musings will connect with others who have been asking similar questions. I don’t have a posting schedule and I don’t know everything I’m going to write; I do know that I’m interested in time, and memory, and aging, and nature, and presence, and nostalgia, and safety, and I believe that living slowly is both an act of privilege and an act of rebellion. I don’t have the answers, but I hope to find some as I go along. 

When I was a child I had the usual dreams of princesses, magic, and fantasy lands. By the time I was a teenager, these had turned into much more plausible aspirations of riches, fame, and prestigious awards. I won’t pretend these dreams have entirely disappeared – I’m only human, and I like to indulge my imagination every now and then. But perhaps it is braver to embrace the gift of an ordinary life: the slow moments of waking up, reading in the rare winter sun, a really delicious gelato, the soft pinwheel shape of my dogs asleep, the moon in the early evening, and every mundane joke shared with friends. So now, I have a simple dream.

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