What a blessing to enter the new year with such a fresh start! Bare white walls, seasoned hardwood floors, empty closet, big windows facing North and East. Just a twin bed, a side table and a dresser. Exactly the kind of easeful living I’ve been craving since the pandemic started.
Since I wrapped up my full-time job in mid-July, I have been nomadically following the seasons. Seizing the summer days with adventures throughout the Pacific Northwest and visits to friends in Alaska, Arizona, California. Reaping the fall harvest while housesitting for a friend and helping at another friend’s letterpress shop. And now, settling into the winter stillness by housesitting for other friends’ and beginning to write again.
Last weekend I only had the energy to set up what I immediately needed. With 90% of my stuff in a storage unit, it would seem that everything here is essential. And yet, it felt done and livable while several boxes remained unpacked. Could I let it be?
“This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential,” wrote Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening (bold added for emphasis).
This is the hard lifelong task.
Staying true to our “birthright integrity.”* Only reaching for what we truly need, instead of anguishing about what to do with everything. Letting go of what is not essential.
This is my pandemic epiphany: I thrive in simplicity.
My own words reminding me:
Cut out the busy, complicated, crazy. Make room for rich, easy, integrated. When one thing flows to another. When choices are obvious. When needs are met for all. And then some. When time is irrelevant and the only place to be is here.
The everyday journey toward integrity continues.
I will keep practicing.
And I’ll keep writing.
Sending weekly updates as I process life and share what I’m discovering. Because I missed being connected to each of you. Whenever the subject line draws you in and wherever the words find you—sharing wisdom as you navigate your own journey. And knowing that you’re cheering me on in my journey. We are finding our way.
May you gravitate toward what is essential for you.
Love,
Jules
*Eloquently described by Parker Palmer in “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life.”
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