Simple Living in Suburbia

I roll out of bed at dawn, put a jacket on over my pajamas and stumble outside. I take a quick look to make sure the ducks and the rabbit are okay. I open the greenhouses so the plants won't get fried. Then I pick fresh spinach for my husband's sandwich and herbs for the day's cooking. Then I go back in to see if my kids are up and dressed yet.

No, I'm not a farmer and I don't live in the country. Other than the tangled empty lot next to us, we pretty much live in suburbia. My husband and all of the neighbors head off to work between seven and eight in the morning and drive into the city to professional jobs. After I get the kids off to school, I sit at a computer and do a professional job or teach classes. 

But now that we have poultry I think I can finally claim to be a real urban homesteader. That's a new movement that tries to take the better parts of the old 1970s back-to-the-land movement and make it compatible with professional, middle-class lifestyles. 

It's a tall order. But our gardens do have a lot more fun gizmos that the dirt-poor back-to-the-landers of yesteryear. Half of my garden is now watered automatically by gravity flow from stored rainwater. 

The thing is that for most of us the desire to grow our own food comes from more than just the avoidance of pesticides and vague feelings that a smidgen of self-sufficiency is good security. It comes from a deep-seated need for a simpler and less frazzled way of life. 

When I went to pick up my kids today, I almost got run over by a guy pulling out of his parking space in to horrible traffic. Later I talked to a woman who runs a modest company and barely has time to eat a regular meal once a day. Most of the kids I see in my ESL practice are already chronically tired and stressed--by the age of nine. 

What does this have to do with raising ducks and growing lettuce?

Everything actually. 

Studies show that fifteen minutes in a natural environment has measurable health effects on everything from blood pressure to immune function. My brief morning scramble to do what most needs doing on our urban homestead first thing in the morning vastly improves my day. I feel better. I don't get depressed as I used to. I wake up worrying about six things and by the time I'm done with the outside bit, I'm ready to stop worrying and just deal. 

Yes, you can theoretically get the same thing out of just having your breakfast out on the back deck, if you have one. But the fact is that you won't when the weather turns bad. I go out early every day--rain, sun or snow, because I have to. My body naturally falls into rhythm with the sun, because there are things that matter that are governed by that rhythm. Simple living doesn't work too well unless its enforced. Apparently, we have a natural human tendency toward hectic stress.

I'm glad to see that it can be done, even in suburbia. It has taken ten years to build our little oasis of simple living, but now it blooms with life. The latest addition is a kitten--a replacement for our hardworking cat (akka, mouse hunter) who has gone to the great sunbeam couch in the sky. There is something about a kitten that epitomizes simple living. Kittens have no appreciation or respect for professional careers, but they really don't demand that much. A tickle here and there, a pant-leg to climb, a bit of food multiple times a day. And for your trouble, they'll keep you in a simpler rhythm.