Let's go small together
An invitation wrapped in an origin story
“Aren’t we a creative little bunch?” my daughter, Grace, asked one day last week, looking around the room we were hanging out in. It was our third day of being mostly housebound, kept inside by bitter cold and high winds. Outside, the world was covered in a hard scrim of icy snow. Inside, our small home was a warm, cluttered mess of books, paint, thread, laptops, cookbooks, and paper.
“Yeah,” I said, “I guess we are.”
“And yet, none of us monetize our creativity,” she said, laughing.
“Nope,” I said cheerfully, thinking of all the things each of us has made in recent months, just for ourselves or to give as gifts, just because we want to.
“Aren’t we lucky?” I added.
Go big or go home, some like to say. More and more, my response is to go home. My response is to go small.
It might be something about living through my 50’s. Or about living through the past ten or so years of shifts in the United States or through the invention of modern social media. But something, or everything, has me understanding in ways I didn’t earlier in life that we are all just specks, pinpoints of light among billions in the universe of space and time.
If this is a bit disconcerting–and it is, if, like me, you’ve labored long within a culture that tells you not only that, if you just work hard enough, you can do and be anything, but also that you should do and be something big–something important, something meaningful, something that distinguishes you from others–it can also be freeing:
It can mean that we don’t have to find or live out a great purpose. We can simply live our small lives the best we can alongside other, similar beings. It doesn’t mean we don’t or can’t or won’t or shouldn’t care for others and the places we live, but it means we don’t have to do that caring in big, unique, changing-the-world ways. It means we can recognize and be OK with the idea that we are all just passing through, and the things we do and make and love will pass with us when we’re gone.
For a good long while in my 20’s and 30’s, I tried, as my ex-husband once put it, “to ride two horses with one butt.” I worked full-time as a high school and middle school English teacher, while also pursuing literary writing and publishing. His metaphor was crude, but apt in more ways than I liked to admit—and then I became a full-time parent to the children from his first marriage and gave birth to two kids of my own (enter horse #3).
I almost pulled it off, publishing a book of poetry by my late 30’s, a few years after my twins were born. It won an award, and I learned a lot about how the literary world works and what comes—and, more importantly, doesn’t come—with publication and recognition. I learned just how much more I would need to do to continue to earn those things, along with how little money I was likely to make from them. Then my marriage imploded, and I became a single parent, solely responsible for running a household. Riding three (or was it now four?) horses with my one self became unmanageable.
After thinking long and hard about what I understood of the world, my strengths and limitations, and what mattered most to me, I let the horse of my writing ambitions go. It was painful, but also, honestly, it was a relief to watch it canter away down my road not taken.
It’s not that the horse I stayed on gave me an easy ride. I made a good living from my work as a public K-12 educator, with quality health insurance and the promise of retirement while I would be young enough to enjoy it, but I continually hit walls of frustration with all that my paid work took from parenting, homemaking, and the creative work I still did (blog writing, primarily) and wanted to do. With all that it took from me in myriad other ways. For years.
Sometimes, especially after reading things about life purposes and callings, or about fighting resistance in creative or entrepreneurial work, or about almost anything meant to be motivational, I couldn’t help wondering, “what if?”
What if I’m meant to be doing something else?
What if I regret the choice I’ve made?
What if I am squandering my “one wild and precious life”?
No matter how I considered the questions, though, I could never see a better way to meet my needs than the one I’d already chosen. And so I struggled on, accepting my path but never making peace with it.
At 57, years before it made the best financial sense, I retired from full-time work. Many asked me if I was now going to write, but I didn’t retire so that I could pursue ambitions I’d let go. I retired because I was burned out. I retired because my list of stress-related diagnoses and types of chronic pain was only growing longer. I retired because I needed to and I could—if I was OK with living a smaller life than I’d once thought I would.
My usual response to the writing question was a shrug. For the first time in my life, I had no ambitions. I wanted—needed—to just be.
In the two-plus years since I left full-time work, I’ve learned that it’s not easy to shed decades of socialization and striving, and that embracing a small life is a process. It’s a journey I’ve come to think might be never-ending. I’m only just beginning to identify the right questions to ask about how to do it.
One thing I do understand now is that going small—like anything we do—is easier when we’re not going it alone. We might be specks, but there’s something necessary and comforting about tethering ourselves to other specks. It makes the sky feel closer and less like something we might just drift off into. That’s why I’ve begun writing here about this undertaking, going out on a Field of Dreams limb and hoping that if I build a place, the people it is right for will come.
Maybe you are one of them?
What you will find here (eventually) are observations about, experiments with, and inspiration for living a creative life more ordinary. I hope that, in time, this might become a gathering place for kindred spirits (yes, I am an OG Anne Shirley fangirl–and yes, I also know what a ridiculous statement that is and don’t care!), a place for making, cultivating, and celebrating small lives with room for satisfying creative work.
Some of you reading have known me for years, either in person or through my blogs or other social media. For those who are new, let me introduce myself:
I am Rita, a life-long writer, reader, and creative dabbler. Though I began my writing life as a poet, I’m really more of an essayist/memoirist now. (But that could change!) In the education world, I was an English teacher, a curriculum developer, an instructional coach, a program coordinator, and a district librarian who focused on literacy, equity, and systemic change. I’m a life-long Pacific Northwesterner; I grew up in a Seattle suburb but now live in Portland, Oregon, in a small mid-century ranchalow in a diverse neighborhood with my husband, Cane, and (for now) my adult daughter, Grace. Cane teaches high school full-time (digital media production); I sometimes substitute and do professional development work. We are both interested in design (we once co-wrote a blog about renovating our suburban 70’s split-entry), learning, and creative endeavors of all kinds. We are elder-Gen Xers who especially enjoy pie (fruit for him, cream for me), with extended family in Washington and Louisiana. We’re thinking about and preparing for our post-full time work life, which includes finding ways to support both our young adult children and our elderly parents.
Where I am as a writer now feels much like our home did on that cold day last week: It’s a small, cozy, warm spot that gives me all the shelter I need. It’s not the kind of house I once dreamed of, but as it turns out, I want a lot less than I thought I did.
If you are on a similar journey (or want to be), if this feels like your kind of place, I am so glad you are here. I hope you’ll keep reading, subscribe, and then use the comments to discuss and share the things you are doing, learning, and appreciating in your own small creative life.
If you like this post, please click on the heart ❤️ and/or share it. Doing those things will help put it in front of others who might also like it. It also gives me encouragement to keep going. Think of it as throwing some metaphorical spare change into the hat of a street musician.
Subscribing via RSS (because my inbox is soooo full). Great to see you here!
Oo, nice to meet you. I was also an English teacher, and a curriculum maker, then cut down by illness and finally retired at 57. Also crafty and like the fact I no longer try to monetise my crafts.