The Joy of Less, by Pico Iyer

Thank you, PATTI DIGH {Life is a Verb: 37 Days} for posting this on Facebook this morning. WOW, what a powerful testimony to the simple(r) life / lifestyle.

The Joy of Less
By Pico Iyer

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/the-joy-of-less/?pagemode=print

I read it, each and every word, and it so resonated within me. Yet, I am not ready to "give up" and to "simplify" to the same level Pico has. But it's something I aspire to ... with maybe my art supplies left to add to my happiness :-).

Funny thing is, I had a most vivid dream last night:

I was in a large apartment-style building, with hundreds of other families. As we all looked out our front windows to see what the commotion we could hear was all about -- we saw a sea of emergency vehicles -- fire trucks, police cars, paramedics, ambulances -- literally thousands of them - just across the avenue from our building. {now mind you, I live in a single-family house now, but have lived in my share of apartments & condos over the years - yet nothing like this; this was in a big-city setting. ANYWAY ...}

They were trying to shout to us something important -- but we could barely hear them. We asked them to use a bullhorn - which they did - and what we heard was this:

"A huge fire is rolling this way and you MUST evacuate in 5 minutes. TAKE ONLY YOUR MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS, AND YOU MUST CARRY WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU."

You can imagine, I'm sure, what went through my mind {sub-consciously, or was I now partly awake?! it was hard to tell ...}. PHOTOGRAPHS. CHILDHOOD MEMORIES. THINGS FOR THE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN THAT THEY MIGHT NOT THINK TO TAKE ALONG. {you see, we were ALL in this one large apartment - and it was filled with "things". Possessions. so the question really became: WHAT is so important about all this STUFF?!} So I grabbed several sacks and totes and bags, filling them with irreplacable items, and even some replaceable items {including a Breyer horse statue from my childhood ... which have in reality long since disappeared from my possession, although I miss them to this day}.

And all the while, my mind kept repeating ... "so now I will get to live that simple life - with not much of anything around me. I wonder how that will go?"

The whole LESS IS MORE quandary -- is that true? Is it true for everyone, or just for some?

And this morning, I woke up to Patti Digh's post that we "must read" this article.

Powerful validation that my dream was trying to tell me something.

Your,

-- Princess Magpie, aka Davielle

and don't you just know that my nickname, PRINCESS MAGPIE, is now ... worrying me. I really am quite the magpie (gathering things), and I wonder if it's offensive to people. I even wonder if somehow, it's offensive to myself.