The right look

There is a corner in our backyard that holds a corrugated iron water tank, an outdoor kitchen sink with running water attached, old buckets and lots of bits and pieces. It's a work area where water is stored, vegetable are washed before they go inside, seeds are sown and sit in the sun. It's not a pretty area but it feels good to work there and as Mrs Anna T rightly pointed out in the previous post's comments - beauty often comes from a purpose, or as Anna stated, "I think I finally realized the secret of your garden's loveliness: it's functional!". You hit the nail right on the head there, Anna.

Functionality holds its own beauty.

It concerns me sometimes when I read emails from readers who are desperate to move to a house in the country or when they are saving to buy things to build a simple life. They believe that when they move to their ideal home or when they have that new breadmaker or Kitchen Aide or when they have a certain "look", all things will fall into place and life will be simple and perfect. There is no need to move, no need for extras to be brought in, simplifying can be done right where you are now and it doesnt have to look any different to what it looks like now.

I've written in previous posts that a simple life may be lived anywhere. There is no "right" location, no tools of trade, no must-have colour and no props to let others know you've simplified. A simple life has no particular look and it's different for you than it is for me. One thing is common to all though - there will be areas where work takes place that might not look pretty, but are as much a part of what you need in your simple life as all the beauty you create. A truly simple life is more about the feel than the look of it but over the years, like me, I bet you'll grow to love the look of the functional.

Like many other things in a simple life, you handmake your life, you don't buy it in. You make do with what you have, and instead of adding to what you have, you usually declutter and get rid of things. Simplifying happens within you - it's a change of your own expectations and wants. Once that has taken place, you can start on what surrounds you in your home. You start cutting back to return to what is most basic, and most simple. You reduce the complexity in your life - and that might include debt, too much junk in the house, having too many commitments, trying to keep up with your friends or neighbours or eating out most nights. It could be anything, but it needs to feel right to you. Copying what others have done probably won't work. You need your own unique work of art.

When you simplify, you reclaim your life and live it according to your own needs and desires, not those of anyone else, like your neighbours and friends, or of fashion. You decide what is important to you, you decide what will make you happy, you decide your own boundaries. When that is done, you set about doing it.

Your home might look very similar to those in your street, but you lead a simple life if you're saving water and electricity, cooking from scratch, shopping mindfully, recycling, repairing, mending, sewing, cutting back on the times you use your car, growing some of your own food, and a hundred other things that only require the doing of them. Your life might still look like it always did, but there will be a change, you'll be in control and won't be dependent on anyone's opinion or the mass appeal of what is fashionable in any particular year.

There is power in independence. You live according to your own values, you gain strength by making your own life decisions and living deliberately, you learn to say no - so your time is your own. As you peel back the years it will reveal to you a life that has been tailor made for you and your family, a feeling that your life is the way it should be, there will be no yearning for that illusive "more".