How much space do we need to occupy in order to be happy? The average American house size is just over 2,000 square feet. The average. That means plenty of folks need to gobble up more space, more resources, more storage for stuff that never leaves its box. A friend who worked for a moving company used to lament the amount of cardboard boxes that he moved from basement to basement, where they would remain planted, growing roots, never leaving the dusty cardboard for a chance at any kind of life. Because we all need three different types of blenders and more television sets than people. Yes, yes. The important things in life.
But the story of American consumption and the idea of paring down is nothing new. The Tiny House Movement has gained popularity over the last ten years. Hell, there is even a tiny house version of the reality TV show House Hunters. It’s trendy to think small, to like the color green, to reduce, reuse, or maybe just recycle. Because we are all aware of the consequences of our own greed—well, at least those of us who don’t believe that God placed us on Earth to gobble it as we see fit. And yet, we still live in McMansions and drive one too many cars and collect cheap Chinese-made objects like we need them to breathe. And we still don’t find the time to donate items we don’t use or repurpose broken items or stop and think before clicking the “Buy Now” button on Amazon Prime. So then the attic fills, the basement fills, the rooms fill, and every corner fills with emptiness. How I ended up living in 200-square-feet is not as purposeful as I would have liked. I do not feel righteous, like I wouldn’t too have too many shoes or buy a big house and fill it with heat and light and a dishwasher if I had the money or the situation or the family with kids. It isn’t about judgement or rejection, but about falling into simple in a way that forced me to give objects weight, to question the usefulness of a plastic container before tossing it in the garbage because the nearest dump is four hours away. I was forced into living the ideology I’d always yearned to represent because I found a place I felt at home and home happened to be only 200 square feet. It is not without challenge. My morning yoga ritual often turns into an anxious dance between trying not to fall on the scalding wood stove while attempting a head stand and avoiding the hanging dirty rag with my clean fingers as I try to breathe through a sun salutation without distraction. It’s like someone should make a YouTube Channel for tiny house yoga, where no limbs stray from the small rectangle of the yoga mat that just perfectly fits in the one free bit of space between the kitchen and the seating area. Occasionally I romanticize the idea, thinking of the one-room cabins I dreamt of while obsessed with Laura Ingells Wilder in my younger days. But when I knock my toothbrush into the dirty grey water tub that functions as a sort of sink and when the water jug springs a leak and soaks through my tea bags that I’ve necessarily stowed beneath it because there is no other logical place for them to exist, I often let out a frustrated sigh. Or when company comes over, and I want to apologize that they must climb over one another to exit the place. Or more often when company does not come over because having a dinner party with no real table is a bit difficult. And all the pans must live in the oven and a chair sets in front of a cabinet that I use daily because, despite a half an hour of contemplation, I cannot find another place for it to be. Life is like maneuvering a puzzle, requiring me to nestle all the pieces into their proper places or the whole room becomes one big, indecipherable mess. And it isn’t just 200 square feet for me, but for two people. Two people’s book collections and two people’s stashes of months’ worth of food and beer and toiletries. And a dog too. But then, miraculously, and despite these occasional frustrations, it does work. Living in a tenth of the space normally occupied by the average American household is not impossible; in fact, it is positively enjoyable 90% of the time. Less space means less to clean. Less space means less money spent on stuff. Less space means every item has purpose, sometimes two or three reasons for existence, filling the entire household with an incredibly useful energy. Less space means more time spent outside breathing fresh, crisp air and pumping warm blood through a happy circulatory system. It also means my creative muscle pumps harder than usual. How to make room for five people in a space meant for one, maybe two? How to use the undersides and insides of cabinets to house spices, dishes, and cups? How to use nails and vertical space and still avoid clutter? I think my interior design skills have grown exponentially over the last six months. And, of course, I can feel my environmental footprint shrinking daily as I compost and reuse and rarely run the generator. My conscious thanks me and so does my bank account.
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Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about how, as a woman, no indoor plumbing is complicated, and how, despite popular belief, the remote Alaskan town that currently houses my potty habits is also inhabited by a number of other women who relieve themselves without the convenience of a white and shiny porcelain throne. So what’s the big deal then? Peeing outside at 20 below? Sounds cold? Yes. But it isn’t exactly about the weather. It’s more about the clothing and the equipment underneath that can make this regular habit that we all participate in multiple times daily into an endeavor that occasionally leaves me crossing my legs in dread instead of relieving myself in the normal and timely manner that I was once trained to do at the age of two. You see, as women we have these things called periods. We pee sitting down. We need toilet paper because 20 below doesn’t exactly allow for the perfect drip dry technique that I practiced all summer long. We do not have an aiming device or a way of relieving ourselves without dropping trough entirely, which often requires the removal of layers of outerwear to then dislodge the clips of coveralls (expressly designed for men) and in turn lose the majority of our body heat while taking a leak as quickly as possible to avoid peeing on our boots (which still happens sometimes because of the proximity of our boots to the possible splatter zone) and end up shivering inside our insulating layers after what feels like a ten minute endeavor. Oh yeah, and that guy next to us probably just saw our butt because there’s not a tree in sight to cower behind. Or maybe we tramped through knee deep snow to find a suitable spot for hide and relief and now have an inch of melting snow in our boots. And then, the guy next to us turns around, unzips and pees without the normal aiming constraints of a toilet. Perfect and absolute freedom. He could even write his name if he wanted. Grrr. It’s moments like those that I feel a simultaneous dose of literal penis envy and strong feminism because there’s got to be a way to make this whole thing, this absolutely normal thing that people do all the time inside and outside, a little bit easier without me feeling like I want to attach a hose to my body. I’ve thought about this a lot (if you can’t tell already). I mean, peeing outside, no biggie right, especially if you’re following the norms of the the bearded lumberjack-ish Alaskan dude that often inhabits these parts. It’s the cold weather and the peeing while adventuring and the peeing while in town or when I forgot the toilet paper or when it’s the middle of the night or when I’m wearing ten thousand layers that I didn’t think about. I’m not even going to start on the whole period thing. They make these things called Go Girls that I have yet to try, like a little plastic device to allow ladies to pee standing up. Something tells me they don’t feel entirely ladylike in use. And whoever designed coveralls for women must have been a man. In fact, most cold weather outdoor gear that ventures more into the Carhartt realm of toughness seems to be designed with a very odd concept of the female body. New life mission? Maybe. As for number two, I have little to no complaints. After all, Mother Nature blessed both sexes with equality in this department. And thank God for foam seats and beautiful outhouse views. |
Meet ErinJournalist, adventurer, writer, musician, dancer, linguist, and cook, ready to tell you about her ridiculous attempts to live in the Alaskan wilderness without running water and live beyond the woods Archives
April 2016
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