Seeing the luxurious

There is a Spanish saying: Mejor solo que mal acompañado, which literally means Better alone than in bad companionship. I always thought that this is true of relationships. That a good relationship, be it friendship, romantic partnership or a work team, reflects the beauty of everyone in it. No one is overshadowed. No one is dwarfed. No one is suppressed. The same is true of objects that fill our homes and other spaces. Their beauty is revealed either when they stand alone or in the right company.

There are many items in my house which have lost their charm either because they’ve been swamped by other stuff or have been overshadowed by bigger or gaudier objects. I’ve started giving space to those little beauties by de-cluttering the house or just altering their arrangement. I’ve learnt through making these small improvements that recognizing the luxurious is all about this… about seeing and presenting things as luxurious although they are common, normal, average, typical and trivial.

Things that are given space stand out. We perceive them as special and we take notice of them. If you think of luxury and beauty in those terms it is almost impossible to have a life that is deprived of them. In that sense, you are never poor. It’s just about perception.. about having the eye that’s willing to see beauty in simplicity… it’s about having or training the beautiful eye.

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness”

~Henry David Thoreau

By the way, have you recently visited any of these blogs: #BehindtheLens or Capturing Little Moments? One of my favourite beauty-spotters recently.

How does a life without a luxury feel?

The parcel was almost bigger than us. We would dive into it and we would fish out the fabrics and get more and more excited with each item of clothes that we pulled out. We were not poor, we were never destitute but we were, in the early years of our childhood, growing up in Communist Poland, in the country that, although rich in culture, human spirit and intellect, did not offer much or rather nothing to its citizens on the goods front.

We relied on those parcels to be sent to us from our family in Switzerland. They would last us and frequently also our cousins and neighbours for a long long time. We would swap, lend, borrow, alter and exchange clothing with others. Very rarely would my mother get us something new. There was just no option. No clothes available. We were dressed in second-hand garments from top to toes and not for a minute we would feel worse off because of that. We didn’t really notice it. It was just something that we were doing… how we were going about having things to wear. That’s it. No great philosophy behind it. Just the circumstances.

When I was six I travelled with my mum to Switzerland. I remember seeing many things and not really being able to make a lot out of them. I probably admired some of them… I probably tried to play with them… But clearly they didn’t make a very lasting impression on me because I just cannot remember them too vividly. As if I didn’t really have any emotional response to them. My heart back then was stolen by something much simpler and common, by vibrant and juicy mandarins. For me the pleasure of the open market was concentrated in those fruits. I just loved them. Their sweet, invigorating and citrus smell. Their colour. Their shape. Their delicate skin so easy to peel off with my tiny and dexterous fingers. It was a joy to have one of them, happiness to have two, euphoria to have a full netted bag of them. Yes, yes… they were already packed like this in those days. This hasn’t changed much.

So how does a life without a luxury feel so far? It feels like that visit to Switzerland when my mind and heart decided to be oblivious to the goods around.. not to take much notice of them.. to forget them. Instead I think I am able to see mandarins again… I feel that I am fishing out the real goodies out of the life box… the tastes, colours and textures of the Earth. As if my mind was programmed to seek beauty and pleasure and because it is not allowed to do it through shopping it develops its other ways… it seeks and finds those two elsewhere.

It’s so easy to get used to one source of pleasure and to become reliant on it. To play safe. To always go for the familiar. And then to despair when that source is removed.

My resolution of not buying left me a bit uncertain about what I should do with myself after meeting an important deadline. In the past I would have gone shopping in town to treat myself to something nice and new. I really wanted my reward for all the hard work that I did. I needed balance. It’s really interesting to see it in yourself that you were used to rewarding yourself materialistically, with a physical object. When did I learn that? I thought to myself. It wasn’t my default behaviour a few years ago. Or maybe it was?

Now I am beginning to see that my hard work can be rewarded through many other ways. Time for myself, a book, a film, music, a winter walk, crazy dancing with my child, a conversation with a friend, a comedy performance? And you know what? It’s so much nicer to find yourself lost in giggles than lost in a shopping centre!

About a mum who stopped buying children’s products: link to an article

Just a link to a brilliant and informative article about a mum who said ‘no’ to consumerism and made parenting without spending possible: ‘Successful parenting without spending money – a mother’s story.’

2014 – a year without a luxury

A few days ago I committed myself not to buy anything new in 2014 and to share the money saved with people who normally cannot afford new things (or just things). This initiative has been started by Sash, the writer of Inked in Colour, and I decided to make it part and parcel of my Caring 2014 project. I promised that I would give more details on how I intend to go about it. Sash has recently explained some of her rules so I am now in a good position to explain what this project will mean for my family.

I have spent the last few days thinking about this idea, pondering its possibilities and limitations and primarily who should be affected by this initiative. Should I involve my husband, should I consider things for my child as well, should I only focus on my purchasing habits? I decided now that I will not buy anything new for myself and my son and for the house, with one exception: my husband is half-way through fixing our kitchen at the moment and we have already ordered and purchased items for this purpose and thus I am excluding him and his DIY projects from my resolution. So when I say that I will not buy new things for the house I mean: decorations, blankets, pillows, candles, frames, calendars, flower pots, pictures, bits and pieces that I normally indulge in. Food, medicine, health and safety and hygiene items will not be affected by this challenge as it would be unreasonable to go without them.

So how will this project affect my purchasing habits? I am not going to buy any: books, cosmetics, clothes, CDs, shoes, jewellery, electronic equipment, stationery, films, notebooks… and my biggest pleasures in life.. cups of coffee in coffee shops and sweets… for once I want someone else to have the privilege of affording a cappuccino and a muffin every so often. I will also not buy any toys, gadgets, room accessories for my son and will try to use the clothes and shoes that he has already got (growth permitting). We’ll see if we have enough for this year.

I was asked if nothing new means that I can buy second-hand? My aim is not to buy anything. I do think that it’s wonderful to give a second life to a product. I see lots of good in buying used items, renovating them, restoring their original function and beauty or even improving their look. But I do have some doubts about buying second-hand goods and will share them with you in a separate post. In its original form this initiative allows for buying from second-hand shops. I intend to reuse, re-purpose, mend, sew and clean things that I have to make them last throughout this year and hopefully beyond it. I suspect that in doing so I will stop perceiving chores as unpleasant and burdensome routines but rather as much needed daily acts of care. So in many ways I see this project as transformative not only of my purchasing habits but also of my home and character.

How will I measure what I have saved? How will I know how much to donate? I am well aware of some of my purchasing habits and this awareness helps. For example, I would normally buy a cup of coffee and a sweet every time I meet a friend in town and when I travel away from home… so now every time when these happen, I will put the money that I would spend on those treats into the giving pot. For my other things, I will need to review my past purchases and planned purchases for this year to examine how much my indulgences are worth. I must trust that what I previously spent on luxuries would have been typical. I’ll decide in due course which charity, family or individuals I will donate to and will present rationale for my choice at some later stage.

So what can you expect from Postcards this year? Stories of success and potential failures, stories of people who care, debates on buying or not buying, reflections on different ways of caring for our families, relationships, health and the environment. Sometimes it will be an article with text, other times just pure photo(journalism). I am not setting any limitations on myself how often I will post. It won’t be daily, it might be weekly or biweekly… when the ideas mature.

All in all, I’ve got an impression that things will become much more manageable in 2014. I hope it will be like this for you too.

What are your thoughts about this initiative? Do you want to try?

Nothing New – 2014 Challenge

There are some initiatives that I just cannot resist supporting. This wonderful Aussie mama, Sash from Inked in Colour, has just started one of them. Motivated by greater good and caring, she decided to dedicate 2014 to deliberate living and in so doing she resolved NOT to buy anything new in 2014. Since the themes for Postcards without stamps for this year are those of Caring (The Caring 2014 Project) and Saving to Give, I am jumping enthusiastically on Sash’s bandwagon and am promising myself not to buy anything new in 2014. What I want to do is to transfer the capability to buy new things to those who normally cannot afford it. I don’t want to put the economy out of joint, just gently change who buys – at least just for a year. I want to care for what I’ve got and benefit those that are not as fortunate as I am. Care and Share – these are my two words for this year. The Nothing New initiative will enable me live by these two words.

Are you up for the challenge? At least for a month, a fortnight, one day? Think about it. I’ll write more about how I intend to do it in my next post.

This logo above is from Inked in Colour

Love, Alicja

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