Absinthia Returns, Part 13

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with  Living a Simple Life.

TV--Putting Life on "Pause"

We have arrived at Part 13 of this conversation with Absinthia... a fitting number for discussing television.  'Nuff said.

Hello,

I have thought a lot about what on earth might be the reason so many people go on saying “I don't have time to live simply,” and today I think I've got it! I think it is television. It passifies you. You sit there, and you receive other people's thoughts, other people's ideas, other people's activities. You can't change anything. Nothing is in person, and no one accomplishes anything without throwing money at it.

The first thing we did when we started our path to a simpler life was we got rid of the tv. It cost money to have it and we didn't need it for our physical survival in any way, so “out with it.” And the first two days or so it felt strange, but after that it felt liberating. So much time to do fun stuff instead of stagnating in front of the “dumb-box.” Nowadays we get our news from the newspapers on the Internet.

I no longer get what the charm is with sitting there and staring at a screen with people running around saying embarrassing things. I don't get the charm in sitting there hour after hour watching others doing things, when you can DO things yourself, for real. My husband and I have talked about this more than once, and we have come to the conclusion that tv actually is more than just a very passive activity, it has to be a kind of drug.

After 9 years without tv, we just don't get it anymore. Why on earth should we want to sit on a sofa and stare at a screen showing people doing things?! Why can´t we sit at the kitchen table and drink tea, instead, where the seats are comfier, the light is nicer and the background sounds are more discreet? Or maybe go out for a walk and enjoy the weather and nature!

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

I think you are exactly right when you say it’s a drug. A major reason why so many people drink a lot of alcohol or take drugs is so they can stop thinking--about life and things that are bothering them. TV works the same way. It is hypnotic and mind-numbing.

- amanda

Hello,

Hmmm, now you make me think again! ;-)

When we visit someone, we always end up in their sitting room, on a sofa in front of the tv for “something to do.” For so many people, tv is seen as normality, common, and necessary for the survival of civilisation as we know it--which of course is not the case. Probably quite the opposite, if you think about it.

I know there is a silent revolution against this kind of behavior though. More and more I hear comments like, “Let's sit in the kitchen, it is so much more relaxed and nice there.“  A small kitchen revolution has been growing slowly but surely. More and more, people would rather sit in peace and sip some nice tea. It is a silent and humble reaction, but a nice and tasty one. ;-)

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

I worry that our culture is being directed by tv, advertisers, media, and Internet services.  I suppose the best thing is to do what we personally believe in, and let everyone else march to those ever-present “drums” as they choose.

-amanda

 The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 14.

Absinthia Returns, Part 5

Compost in UK, photo by John Winfield

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with  Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Composting seems like a great way to manage our garbage and get it into a form that benefits the Earth.  But I always run into problems with unwanted visitors taking up residence in the pile, bin, or whatever.  Last year I set up a worm farm in a plastic box in the house. It was great for composting food scraps and even paper. But it produced so many little fruit flies, that I had to get rid of it.

- amanda

Hello!

I had a friend who kept a worm farm. She kept it under the zink during the winters, but as soon as the spring started, she put it out on her balcony.

Small tip to get rid of fruit flies: take garlic, just a piece or two, punch it with a fork so it gets some holes in it. Place it where the flies are gathering. Works like a charm ;-)

To handle regular flies, make a bouquet of silver absinthum, and hang it in the window. No more flies ;-)   If you prefer not to have poisonous flowers in the home, grow lavender in a pot or in the garden. When it’s in bloom, cut some and make small bouquets of fresh lavender and hang in the windows to protect against flies, hang in the closets to protect against moths. They will look and smell just as lovely when dried. And don´t forget to put dried lavender in the drawers for a nice smell and protection against all sorts of bugs :-)

We compost anything that is biological in our house. And we very seldom throw away any food. We eat our food, and we don´t make more than we need. We use the clothes until they are too worn out, then we make tarn (yarn made from strips of fabric) of whatever is still usable and compost the rest.

We grow a lot of leafy greens for food, as potted plants indoors. Outdoors, we harvest a lot of what others consider as weeds. We dry them, or put them in the freezer and eat them as greens.  We also grow berries, fruits, and greens in our garden. We have raised beds for that.

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

We are also very careful to eat all of our food, but some of it is so damaged by the time it gets to the store, that the outer parts often have to be disposed of or composted.

- amanda

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 6

Absinthia Returns, Part 4

A home rainwater cistern in Mississippi  (photo by Jeffrey Reed)

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with  Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

I am very interested in how to provide our own water. Many people here have wells--some for watering the yard only, and some with reverse-osmosis filters for drinking. Deep wells here at the coast have a lot of salt in the water.  The ocean affects everything, including our groundwater.

Where do you get your water? From a community water system, a well, or collected rainwater? Do you do anything special with your wastewater?

- amanda

Hello again :-)

We do have our own well on the back of the house. Before this village was joined to the regional water supply, the previous owner took all his water from that drilled well. Nowadays and for the last 30-35 years or so, this village has been connected to the regional water and sewerage. We have been thinking about reopening our own well, but before we start drinking from it, we have to order proper testing of the water so it is all ok. We are very close to the Gulf of Bothnia, and there have been some rather scary reports about the level of toxins in the fish out here. So, first some testing: “better safe than sorry” is my motto on such matters.

We save rainwater for watering plants.

As for wastewater, our water from washing dishes, washing clothes, toilet, and shower all goes into the regional sewer system. When we dye yarn, we pour the waste (barch, onion skin, and such) into our compost pile. We don´t use any toxins when we dye.  That is a strong rule in our house.

Composting toilets are quite common here, out in the summer houses mostly. The summer houses often are out in the countryside far away from the regular electricity and sewage systems, so you have to find ways to handle things like this. To have a regular old “outhouse” you have to get lots of approvals, but it is much easier to get a composting toilet approved. However, if you want to add the toilet compost to your regular compost, then you have to get it approved. Otherwise you just add it to your kitchenkompost-bag, which goes into the regional garbage handling system.

A Swedish lady recently got an award for a very smart invention. You take whatever water you have, well water or rainwater, and pour it in the bottle and put it in the sun. There is a solar panel cleaning system inside. The water gets heated, and as soon as it’s clean and drinkable, a sign shows up.  This little portable water purification system is called Solvatten  :-)

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

With the oil spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico a few years ago, I wouldn’t dream of eating or drinking anything out of the ocean here. The chemicals that were applied were probably worse than the oil, which was a tragedy in itself. 

Rainwater collection is probably a better way for us to get water. It’s very trendy in some parts of the US, like Austin, but setting up a rainwater system for drinking water is very expensive. There must be a home-made way to do it.

- amanda

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 5

Absinthia Returns, Part 3

Modern wood cooking stove

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with  Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Lately I have been thinking about how to minimize the amount of electricity that we use.  How do you heat your house? Wood stove, fireplace, electric heat, gas? We have electric, and it’s costing us a fortune, plus adding to global warming.

- amanda

Hello :-)

Here in Sweden we have lots of sun during the summer, but during the winter… not so much. Now in December we have hardly more than 4 hours of daylight. Yet, we have enough sunshine to support solar power panels! We can heat our own water, and even sometimes get enough electricity made to sell back to the local electric company. There are some companies out there that sell “starter packs” so you can set up your own solar power panels for a small sum, as long as you have a screwdriver and a drill and know how to handle them ;-)

We heat the house with a firestove in the kitchen and an extra stove in the sitting room. This works great for us.  The firestove in the kitchen is the regular heat source, but during December and January we have to light the extra stove sometimes to get a reasonable temperature. In these months we often get the “Russian cold” when the Siberian winds pass over us.  Then we can get temperatures as low as -35 degress Celsius. It is so cold the skin hurts if you get it exposed to the air.

Yep, I have good use for all my wooly knits :-) Those legwarmers from your pattern are a great help during these very cold periods.

The firestove in our kitchen is a really old one, probably from when the house was built, a hundred years ago. We cook all our food on it, we bake all our bread in it. We heat water on it, dye yarn, and by hanging a wooden stick between two hooks in the ceiling, we can dry clothes and yarn there when the weather doesn´t allow us to dry it outside. This firestove is a great money and climate saver, even if you consider the price of firewood. To heat this house with electricity, you would probably have to pay at least double, maybe triple what we pay the local lumberjack for our yearly load of firewood.

Maybe it sounds just horrible, cooking with a firestove in the summer. I haven´t really thought about it that way. I am probably too used to this way of living. It is after all the way I grew up at my granny’s and grandfather’s place. In the summer you light a quick little “coffee-fire” early in the morning or late at night for some speedy summer-cooking, before the day’s heat, or after the worst heat of the day. Summer cooking is different from winter cooking. You only make speedy simple meals--no long-cooking stews and such--just simple things like yoghurt, wraps with some stir-fried meats, simple things that take very little time and very little cooking. The smoke helps to keep the mosquitos away, so that is nice too :-)

´til next time,

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

Ah, electricity. I wish we could live without it. But how would you and I communicate, then?  I'd love to set up a small windmill here, to produce the electricity we need. It would be wonderful to have an electric car that’s powered by our own wind-generated electricity. That’s probably far off in the future for us, though.

- amanda

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 4

Absinthia Returns, Part 2

Fair Trade products (photo by Andie Gilmour)

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Last night my husband and I were discussing the “throw-away” mindset that our culture has regarding many things that we purchase, including clothes. They are so cheap at the big box stores, that many people buy a few outfits, wear them for a season, and then get rid of them and buy more. What a waste! But I suppose it keeps millions of poor factory workers from starving.

- amanda

Hello :-)

This “buy-wear-throw” away culture… I heard a politician on the radio once defending it with “but we support the poor countries if we buy things.”  But, sad to say, that is not true. The only ones we support if we buy in the big brand stores, are the western multi-millionaires that sit comfortably on their big moneybags. The poor seamstresses make less than half a dollar a day. They have to borrow money from the black market money lenders to be able to buy food and pay the rent. The poor young girls that put the iphones together, they have such bad work-situations (too long days, no rests, too stressful etc.), that the factory owners have had to block the doors out to the roofs to stop them from commiting suicide.

I look for this kind of information in the newspapers. It never hits the headlines, but one finds it if one looks for it. And I do, because I refuse to live a good life on the back of my brother, and I refuse to eat from my sister’s plate.

Some years ago, more than ten years ago now I guess, a young boy child finally was able to run away from the debt slavery that his parents had sold him into. He started fighting the money lenders that organize this kind of thing, and he started fighting against the system that allows child labour.  I had the chance to hear him speak on these issues, and he said, “The only way to end this, is to not support them in any way. It is so easy. Just don´t support them. Don´t send your money in their direction.”  He was so dangerous for the factory owners, that he was murdered after just a few years. 

So, I don´t give them my money. I don´t buy any product made with child labour, or under other kinds of unfair conditions. I make the things I need myself, or I get it from a local producer (the local seamstress, the local fire wood seller, etc.), or from someone with a “clear” source, such as Fair Trade, from whom I buy cocoa and vanilla.

By not letting people fare ill, at the same time I’m not letting the earth fare ill. By not letting greedy people enslave others, I don´t support the polluting transports. So Fair Trade is both fair for people and for the planet’s eco-system. All of us must stick together, earth and people are one. It is very easy, if one lets it be easy :-)

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 3

Absinthia Returns, Part 1

Shopping mall in Toronto, 2008  (photo by Benson Kua)

Living a Simple Life

My Swedish friend, Absinthia, has kindly agreed to have another conversation with me for this blog.  In 2011, we posted an 8-part series of emails, starting here.  The current series is about living a simple life, and I think you'll enjoy her perspective.

Dear Absinthia,

I have been thinking about you a lot, lately, and I hope we can have another conversation--this time about simple, basic living. As humans, we must start making the transition. Global warming is happening faster than we expected, and we’ve just got to take swift, major steps to correct the way we are living on this Earth.

- amanda

Hello!

I wanted to think if I have something to say and share about simple living, and I think I do :-) We have been living a small simple life for some years now so I have learned quite a lot, remembered lessons my granny and grandfather taught me, read some, heard some, realised some and thought some too ;-)

I am now a teacher fiber crafts, and I also do commission work.  It may sound strange, but I am much happier and feel physically much better now, even though we have approximately a third as much money as we did before.

I hear and read that many people think that Christmas is a very stressful time. I think that may be because they are focused on the material stuff “Buying, buying, buying!!!” instead of making an experience “let´s have a lovely holiday together: read, tumble around in the snow, and drink hot cocoa!”

And this is the core of the climate-disaster in the making, don´t you think? If we stop the “buying, buying, buying,” then the big businesses cannot enslave the poor countries into child labour, and then the international traders will no longer get rich from all those poisonous mass-producing industries that contaminate the water and the earth, and all the cheap stuff will no longer be transported hence and forth, bought by us and then hardly get any use before we exchange it with some new cheap bad-quality stuff, and then get thrown away at the junk heaps everywhere.

We have completely stopped buying Christmas gifts. We buy trees in an agroforestry-project and send their gift-cards as Christmas cards :-) It saves the earth and gives the growers and their families a way to support themselves. I am happy to have found such a nice project to support. We have supported them for more than 10 years now :-D

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:

  Absinthia Returns, Part 2.

A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 3

Three Mile Island Protest
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Dear Absinthia,

Thank you for what you have written about the cold war and nuclear accidents. The Three Mile Island meltdown was a big deal here in the US, but Americans are so influenced by the media, that the corporate powers and politicians can usually get public opinion turned back around to their way of thinking after something like that. At the time I was very concerned, but I was in my early 20s, and I had grown up from my radical, activist days. My focus then was on graduating and getting married.

Sometimes I think that the life of an activist is very upsetting all the time. You have to be negative, loud, and very out-there with your emotions. I just couldn’t keep it up and still have a decent personal life.

I like to comfort myself with the thought that karma brings us the life lessons we need, and that means if I’m supposed to be safe, I’ll be safe. And if I’m supposed to get radiation sickness, I will. But either way, the best lessons that I need are presented in life. Same with everyone else.

However, there is a very important element missing in that attitude: compassion. If we, as humans, take care of our fellow humans and the Earth, we will grow as a sentient species. And that’s a pretty important thing to try to help along.

So finally, I have come to the point where I don’t worry about things very much, and if my intuition tells me to speak out or take action, I do. That’s the only way I can keep living this life and still be happy.

-amanda

This conversation is continued with Absinthia's reply:
A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 4.

Chernobyl Monument