SIMPLIFYING A LIFETIME

A series of essays.....

My Personal Library.....Books, Books, Books!!

.....as seen through my eyes!



By: Jacqueline E. Hughes


Is the art of creating a more simplistic lifestyle a product of age, change or the current economic vibe?  A bit of 'all of the above,' perhaps?



Short of being labeled a hoarder, I would categorize myself and lifestyle, under the heading of sentimentalist along with everything this title encompasses and implies! Reasons to shed tears: Romantic movies, NBC's Brian Williams' adoration of all canine creatures, pictures of my children and grandchildren, the rocks I bring home from all of my travels whether domestic or international, classic childhood toys and memorabilia rescued from the youth of my two adult children, and.....BOOKS!  Moving from home to home, as we have done several times in our many years of marriage, was often a nightmare!

Older, wiser and more comfortable in my own skin....I can recall the many 'Boogie-Man,' monster-filled nights I spent as a young girl just lying awake in bed thinking about our latest visit to a certain aunt and uncle's home on a Saturday night.  My aunt would open the front door and guide us along the shaggy, brown path to their kitchen.  This exposed carpeted walkway was lined by two to three-foot stacks of newspapers, magazines, boxes and overstuffed paper bags that saturated the entire room.  I now wonder how many trees sacrificed themselves to become the living room decor of my aunt's home all those years ago.....?!

Once in the kitchen, we were almost able to identify the chrome and vinyl clad kitchen chairs that were positioned around a table completely covered by layers, stacks and piles of familiar products and kitchen items.  My aunt would relieve several chairs of their teetering burdens and allow my parents to have a seat. 

From my vantage point in the corner, I could see a sink full of soiled dishes and the surrounding countertops hosting a display of erratically stacked pots and pans, coffee mugs and glasses that resembled a colorful and creative landscape of miniature mountains and valleys.  Floor areas around the counters and table contained some old, used and even new household items that still remained in their original packaging.  I can't recall blinking while in this house.  My eyes were so overwhelmed and entertained all at the same time!

My aunt's illness consisted and thrived under the concept that all things should be used only once, thrown away (eventually) and replaced by new ones.  This applied to pots and pans, dishes, mops, silverware, sheets on the bed, towels....and so on.  Obviously, the new things overlapped the old and created mass chaos in that humble little house that protected its five living inhabitants from the outside elements, if not from my aunt on the inside. 



The Grimm Family

I may not have understood, at the time, my fears as a young child of five or six, but my basic anxiety stemmed from the innocent realization of wondering if this could happen to my family.  My mother loved her younger sister and never treated our visits to her home as a laughing matter or a side-show at the circus.  I believe she always hoped that our uncle would eventually see past the 'veil of love' he had for my aunt and acquire professional help on her behalf.  Without having my mother to call-up and ask anymore, I can't remember if my uncle ever did.

As I grew older I remember thinking that this gene pool was not one I intended to splash around in any time soon!  Later on, as a young wife and mother myself, even our daughter's toys tossed around our small, Cape Cod living room floor gave me pause and I would scramble around in an attempt to clear the space before dinner thus securing peace of mind. 

I have never professed to being super possessed by the need (or desire) to clean constantly.....trust me!  The dust bunnies multiplied and thrived beneath most of our larger pieces of furniture and I never lost a moment of sleep over them.  Dust gathered on flat surfaces and was left unnoticed until someone would draw a creative rudimentary face by dispersing the dust with their tiny index finger, hmm....!!  This reminded me of that (one) car in the public parking lot screaming WASH ME on its rear window!  The dirty dishes were rinsed and placed in the dishwasher with the pots and pans resting upside-down to air on the drainboard.  Life was simple.  Life was good!



The Siskind Family

My daughters enjoyed clean, comfortable clothes and were never chastised for 'just being a kid' and playing outside in the sand, dirt or piles of Michigan leaves that accumulated in the autumn along our sidewalk deprived back street in the city.  Our priorities as parents consisted of offering positive teaching and sound advice, introducing our daughters to new ideas, food, places, and loving them with as much intensity and pride as we could possibly muster.  If an early afternoon picnic downtown at the Island Park in Eaton Rapids or a visit to the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing usurped cleaning out some accumulated dust bunnies....we enjoyed the time together!

Having entered the age of ballet, guitar, youth basketball, tap dance and piano lessons....with a sprinkling of gymnastics for good measure,  my life was spent in the car going from venue to venue almost every night of the week.  Eventually, middle and high school sports became our priority as wave upon wave of 'bleacher warming' engulfed any free time we had left.  Quite often we were eternally grateful for family and friends to come over for dinner on the occasional open weekend so that it became mandatory to clean our house from top to bottom!!  Entertaining became my timetable and saving grace when it came down to a thoroughly clean home. 

To complicate matters even more, we fell madly in love with a seventeen-room Victorian era house about the time our youngest was five years old.  Selling our small Cape Cod, we moved into this massive  Beauty with stars in our eyes and proceeded to amass seventeen rooms of furniture and untold volumes of memories (and more books) as our girls lived, laughed and played within this space of over 3,500 square feet!

Papa and Brenna

Many grand-scale and imaginative plays were staged and performed in the oversized foyer with its warm, hand-carved oak staircase and switchbacks climbing up to the second floor serving as the backdrop for each scene.  We even came to envision each daughter walking down that staircase on their wedding day with family and friends gathered in the enormous front rooms and foyer to celebrate the happy occasion.

Based upon various circumstances, changes often dictate the new phases of our lives.  Eight years later, we found ourselves downsizing to a comfortable split-level home, open concept, consisting of seven rooms and around 1,500 square feet of living space.  I will not lie....it was pure hell trying to eliminate so much 'stuff' from our lives in order to complete this transition.  It turned out to be cathartic to see many items donated to friends-in-need, others sold in several garage sales and the remaining pieces surrounding us in our new environment on Donegal Street!

Our newer more simplistic lifestyle was a product of change and  produced a lighthearted and independent nature among the four of us.  This was an immense change from our eight-year-old attitude of living for a structure rather than having a structure protect us as we lived in it.  We had become slaves to a home originally built by a lumber baron for his family and based upon his prestige within the community back in 1901.  By creating this change in our lives, we had gained peace of mind! I had acquired a much less complicated home to clean.

Corinne and Alexandria

As time dictates, we became empty nesters all too soon with both of our daughters attending Michigan State University, our own alma mater.  Our hearts were filled with pride and bleeding green and white, our university's school colors, as our youngest was enrolled as a freshman.  My husband secured a new, higher paying  job and, with the economics of the construction industry in Michigan once again on a downward spiral, this was exceptional news for us!  The downside of this was that we would be empty nesting, at the young age of forty-seven, in Orlando, Florida and far, far away from our eighteen-year old daughter.....!

Crazy things began to swiftly happen as a movie being played in fast-motion....sort of the 'Keystone Cop Effect.'  Our oldest daughter, Ali, graduated from MSU winter term and secured an internship with the Walt Disney World Company and moved down to Orlando with her dad.  She helped to open Animal Kingdom in 1998 and was hired as a full-time employee of Disney Wide World of Sports soon afterwards.  I remained at my job in Okemos, Michigan and lived alone at our little house on Donegal as Corinne navigated her freshman year at State. 

The most difficult decision of my life lingered right around the corner when I would have to leave my baby and begin a new chapter of my life in Orlando.  This change in lifestyle may have contributed to a period of depression so deep and painful that the guilt spawned from it lingers with me to this day.  Once a Mom....always a Mom, and there is no denying the physical and emotional affect leaving a child has on a woman. 

Depression, ultimately solving nothing, had to go!  Securing employment with ISSA Homes in Celebration, Florida was amazing therapy.  New faces, new circumstances and new friendships helped out considerably and, after all, I had Dan and Ali around me on this ride. We flew back to Michigan as often as possible and brought Corinne down here for visits.



Courtesy: Tiny House Giant Journey

Now, nearly eighteen years later, and seriously near retirement, yet another simplifying lifestyle change must be made.  Oh, yes....it occupies most of our evening conversations and takes-up a large percentage of our silent thought process throughout the day.  It's not exactly about designing and building our own 'Tiny Home,' after all, or is it?  Could downsizing to, let's say, 550 square feet of living space solve our dilemma?  But what about all of my books?  I am tempted to consider living in a tiny home every time I see one on Facebook.  It's the playhouse I never had as a young girl and....it would be so darn easy to keep clean!! 

This new change is all about our five Grandchildren!  Yes, they all just happen to live back up in Michigan....!  Our heartstrings are plucked as soulfully and lovingly as the strings of a Joe Bonamassa guitar when it comes to missing and loving these five, sweet faces. 

Embarking upon yet another new phase in our lives, Papa Dan and I have some serious sorting out (major purging, as well) to do.  I'm chalking this one up to 'age' with a huge dash of Love and a whole lot of Cuteness stirred into the mix!

The Loves of our Lives

Copyright © 2015 By Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved