Land's End

Early in the twentieth century, artist Russell Porter planned to start an art colony on a 50-acre plot of land adjacent to our lighthouse property called “Land’s End.” The colony failed to materialize but the stone pillars erected at its entrance still stand (pictured above) and we drive through them every day on our journey to and from our home at the light keeper’s cottage. I like to think of them as gateways to our own art colony, whereupon entering we aim to cast our cares aside.     

And with the advent of summer here, I am reminded how spectacular the season is in Maine and how very blessed we are to live here. Linda and I half-jokingly remark that if we had known how special summers are we would have moved here years ago. In a sense, summer is what makes the winters livable for us. As one old timer said, “If you can’t endure the winter, you don’t deserve the summer.” So, I guess we earned our good weather for another year!

After escaping the sweltering heat and humidity of Florida (which friends and family inform us has only gotten worse), we love living where air conditioning is not a necessity and sea breezes usually suffice as substitutes. All of which is to say that literally living where the land ends makes us mindful of the beauty that surrounds us, motivates us to share it with others, and moves us to exercise our creative gifts. 

I love a quote attributed to Edward O. Wilson: “The crucial first step to survival in all organisms is habitat selection. If you get to the right place, everything else is likely to be easier.” I cannot speak for others but as for us, the power of place has proven instrumental to living a life of fulfillment and fun. Once we find a place that feeds our souls we are in a position to grow as people and pursue our passions. So, here is to living life to its fullest wherever we call home! 

The Art of Savoring

Greetings from the coast of Maine! I recently finished reading the thought-provoking book titled Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasure of Solitude by Stephanie Rosenbloom, a travel writer for the New York Times. And she shares about learning to savor her weeklong visit to Paris in the spring, Istanbul in the summer, Florence in the autumn, and New York in the winter. All of which got me to thinking about the art of savoring.

Rosenbloom quotes a resource from her research that captures its essence: “In Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience, the scholars define it as ‘a search for the delectable, delicious, almost gustatory delights of the moment.’ It describes the process of enjoyment: how a person manages or ‘attends to’ not just a gustatory delight, but any kind of positive experience.” 

Now, I love a “gustatory delight” as much as the next guy, but I am not simply talking about good food here. No, what I am proposing is much more of a holistic appreciation for the simple pleasures of life, including many that we may take for granted. Notice that the above description mentions the “process” of enjoyment. Linda and I not only try to savor our meals, but also the process of procuring them. 

I don’t know about you, but I used to think it was odd when movies depicted people going to the grocery store and coming home with only enough stuff for that day, or even that meal. For example, one’s tote bag revealing a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of bubbly. But nowadays, we find ourselves not only frequenting our local grocer for staples, but also our nearby farmers market for specialty goods, and other neighborhood markets for sundries like fresh pastries. 

Another useful method for savoring life is active anticipation, or purposely pondering an upcoming event by planning the experience ahead of time. For example, Linda and I recently booked a weekend getaway to Peterborough, New Hampshire for the holidays. In the meantime, we are enjoying the preparation for our trip by researching sites online and reading more about the area. The anticipation of participation is fun!

Yet another means of savoring an experience is the simple act of being present in the moment. One example of this is that of the flaneur, what the French call a leisurely stroller, following his curiosity with no particular destination in mind. Linda and I call this being a tourist in our own town and we practice it a lot [visiting local lighthouses as pictured above]. And Rosenbloom herself has created the practice of what she calls “Tourist Tuesdays,” which are weekly times during routine errands to try something new or go someplace she has not been in a long while.

“And speaking of practices, I began jotting down those that, through cities and seasons, helped make my alone time rich and meaningful: snapshotting the moment, trying new things, being present, being playful, communing with art, cultivating anticipation, finding silence, rolling with whatever comes, walking, listening, reminiscing, remembering that everything is fleeting,” concludes Rosenbloom. 

The Art of Living

As mentioned in my last post, Linda and I had the privilege of sharing our message of “Living Large With Less” at the Camden library here in coastal Maine. We were somewhat surprised by the turnout of a standing-room-only crowd, what with the event being inadvertently held on Maundy Thursday, which prevented some of our church friends from attending. Yet the end result was an engaging time with fellow travelers on the journey toward living more lightly. 

Regular readers know that the core of our message is the countercultural notion that intentionally living with less stuff can contribute to a life with more meaning. Less time spent acquiring and maintaining possessions means more time to travel, collect experiences, and create memories that last a lifetime. And a pivotal point for us is the ability to leverage the leasing lifestyle in the process. Nothing frees the mind like not needing to worry about unanticipated maintenance fees.  

What is interesting to us is other people’s queries about our long-term plans and whether or not they include owning property again. And while we usually reply that we are open to it if the right situation presents itself, the more we have thought about it lately, the less inclined we are to tie ourselves down, and I don’t just mean geographically. While we do love where we presently live, we also like being able to pull up stakes if necessary. 

And contrary to popular belief, the reality is that ownership is a fleeting proposition as it is. For example, I calculated that we’ve owned 10 cars in our 30 years of marriage, for an average of 3 years per car. And we’ve lived in 12 homes during that time, for an average of 2.5 years at each place. So, based on my analysis the standard lease period of 3 years starts to make a lot of sense, particularly when maintenance costs are accounted for also.  

As the philosopher Epictetus waxes eloquent in The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness: “Think about it: What is really your own? The use you make of the ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. Do you have books? Read them. Learn from them. Apply their wisdom. Do you have specialized knowledge? Put it to its full and good use…Do you have a good idea? Follow up and follow through on it. Make the most of what you’ve got, what is actually yours.”

Be Creative

So, a friend and I spent this morning chatting over a cup of joe at our local café. We covered several topics, with the most interesting one being the place of ambition in our lives. He came from the perspective of a businessman faced with tapping his artistic side during the early days of retirement. And I shared my thoughts as a creative working to make a living in a challenging marketplace while enjoying the process of making art.

And we agreed that it takes both art and commerce to craft a life. As for the ambition part, I am not as ambitious as my friend nor very ambitious in general, and I am learning that is okay. My wife is not the ambitious type either but we content ourselves with the knowledge that we share an amazing life together that most people only dream about. If life were to end today, I feel that it has been an awesome experience and one with few regrets.  

In my experience, ambition is overrated. Most of the ambitious people I have known tend to mistreat other people in the pursuit of their own agenda. I am not saying that has to be the case but it often is. And I truly don’t know of anyone I would trade places with as far as overall lifestyle goes. For life to become meaningful for each of us, it must suit our particular sensibilities, not those of others. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa.

I like what Louisa Thomsen Brits writes in The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection: “A person who simply lives up to their own standards and appears at ease in their environment, who seems to eschew jostling for a place in social hierarchy and competitive behavior, is described as able to…rest in oneself, be comfortable in one’s own skin. It is a quality that suggests an inner stability of identity that is not dependent on attention or status.” And you?

The Art of Life

This is a somewhat unorthodox posting. With it I hope to convey a sense of what helped propel my wife and I on our unconventional journey of living large with less. To say it has turned out even better than we anticipated would be an understatement as it has allowed us to explore alternative ways of being.

For example, I am reminded of an incident during our period of home ownership. My brother and I were chatting on the phone about some painting I needed to do but had postponed due to my writing and he quipped, “So put down your pen and pick up the paintbrush.” And that, in so many words, is the type of trade-off I tired of making. As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously remarked, “The writer shall not dig.” Or paint or mow.

Suffice it to say that the joys of home ownership did not include manual labor for me. I maintained the lawn for exercise until our mower died after several years and to prevent the yard from going to pot I hired a guy to take care of it until we sold our house. What I yearned to do was “put down the paintbrush and pick up my pen” and so I did.  

While I’ve written hundreds of articles, finishing a book as escaped me to date. Yet I was thinking the other day that my greatest creative act is the art of my life. As Henry David Thoreau said, “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” And it was famed black belt Bruce Lee who said: “I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualizing myself to be an artist of life.”

Call me a philosopher poet but the creative life has always appealed to me and this quote from Pierre Bonnard really hits home: “What attracted me was less art itself than the artist’s life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life.”

And artist J. Stone reiterates the point: “The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself, the ones who express the inexpressible. They neither paint nor sculpt—their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.” I don’t know about you, but I want to be an artist of being alive!

The Nantucket Project

It has been a couple of months since I last posted here as I am in the process of transitioning my websites but I thought I’d go ahead and share a somewhat time-sensitive update. Late last month my wife, Linda, and I volunteered at The Nantucket Project (TNP), the fourth annual thinkfest held on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where regular readers will remember we lived for several months during our sabbatical of a couple years ago.

As it turned out, we were already set to visit the island for a vacation through the good graces of friends who invited us to housesit their place while they were off-island. It was only after booking our flights that I realized the good timing of our visit coinciding with TNP. I applied for a fellowship since attending the event cost about $4,000 but did not get one; however, I was invited to volunteer and quickly signed up Linda also.

The theme of the conference explored the intersection of art and commerce and its resulting values. In addition to some cool, free shirts (pictured above), we also got to attend several of the sessions, including a surprise visit from Secretary of State John Kerry (who has a home on-island), and a surreal appearance by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange via hologram in real time from his asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

I also got to meet some very interesting people, including influential tech columnist Walt Mossberg (formerly of the Wall Street Journal), documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (who interviewed Assange live), founder of the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences Richard Saul Wurman, copyright activist (and a founding board member of Creative Commons) Larry Lessig, and several others. Linda helped with event registration, I assisted with video production and we both had fun.

The Being of Art

Over Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I visited the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, the largest restored Shaker community in America. For the uninitiated, Shakers are a Christian sect who broke from the Quaker tradition and became known for their vibrant dancing during worship. They are largely known for their utopian living arrangements and for their fine workmanship, namely furniture and specifically chairs.

Aside from the peaceful vibe of the community derived from their simple approach to life, what stood out to me most about the Shakers was their attention not simply to the art of being but also the being of art. The late monk and writer Thomas Merton, who happened to live not very far from the Shaker Village in Kentucky, wrote an insightful book about the community called Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shakers.

With reference to the Shakers’ work ethic he wrote: “In no case was work to be done in a hurry or under pressure, or indeed under any form of spiritual compulsion. The competitive spirit was banned because of its occult relationship with lust and violence. Overworking was frowned upon…They strove in all things for truth, and made a point of simply being themselves.”

And Merton described the Shakers’ creative process this way: “You are concerned enough about this thing that you are making that this has got to be. Here is something that God is calling into being through you, and if you pay attention and you take care...there is going to be a new being in the world which has come into the world through your care and through your love of this being.”

He summarized the Shakers’ artistry also: “‘Labor until you bring your spirits to feel satisfied.’ What do they mean by that? Art. Any way of learning how to do the thing right is art. It doesn’t have to be a picture or a sculpture or something like that. Art is the right reason for making a thing. So whether it is cooking or whether it is making shoes or sewing a garment or something like that, it is art.” So create art until your heart is content.

The Heart of Art

As part of our celebration of my 50th birthday the other day my wife and I visited the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Frist Center in Nashville and loved it. According to the exhibit, Rockwell was hailed as a “contemporary Currier and Ives” and “Dickens with a paintbrush” and was heralded for the realism and idealism of his portrayals of simple, small town life in America.

One of my favorite Rockwell paintings, which was not part of the exhibit but hangs at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is the painting of his adopted hometown at Christmastime, which is pictured above. It speaks to me of the beauty of New England, the Christmas holiday, and small town living in general. Rockwell’s ability to capture the essence of any setting was unparalleled, but home even more so.

Rockwell was a master of his craft and as an artist he inspires me to create with heart the type of art that uplifts people and moves them toward their better selves. To me the artist’s legacy is so much more than the impressive quantity of his artwork; it is also the quality of the art he created with such attention to detail. Some may criticize Rockwell’s work as crass commercialism, but I think he preferred people to products and it showed in his portrayal of them.