Why Floyd?
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo Da Vinci
I’ve never been comfortable with extravagant or abstract wealth. Since I was young girl, I’ve had an awareness that land, water, and food are what define whether one is rich or poor. So much of the rest is a social phenomenon of modern day capitalism, consumerism, and media.
I’ve always been interested in my life’s work, but when it comes to a career, I’ve balked. Jobs are a fact of modern life, but if you’re doing one just for the money, it can feel like little more than paid slavery.
Years ago I began reading how-to books and spiritual books on homesteading and living simply. When I arrived in Floyd twenty-two years ago, looking to live more self-sufficiently, I found others I could learn from who were reading the same books.
And how fitting that we ended up in the mountains of Virginia where the resourceful and independent mountain people had the skills we wanted to learn, the ones you couldn’t find easily in suburbia or the cities. They knew how to make things and make do, a trait that not long ago was greatly admired, but more recently has been downplayed or even belittled (as evidenced by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s TV show The Simple Life, for example).
I’ve never liked the stress of debt so I tend not to spend what I don’t really have. I’d rather live with less and enjoy it than live with more and have to stress about how to pay for it (and I’m thinking about both the monetary costs and the environmental costs of material things). I have quite a few luxuries and hardly live a self sufficient life, but I’m much closer to one than I would have been if I hadn’t come to Floyd. Here, where there’s a long tradition of herb harvesting, I learned about self-health, learning names of what was growing around me, which herbs do what, and how to make medicinal tinctures. I learned how to use a wood stove and to preserve the food I grew (but it’s been so long since I canned that I suspect I forget how). I know where my water comes from and how to get it if the electricity goes out.
Floyd? It’s so much more than the music and art. Although, I believe that many of the musicians and artists who moved here came for the opportunity to live a simpler lifestyle because living simply is conducive to nurturing creativity.
Back to the land? Why did we ever turn our backs on it? Seems we are paying the price, or will be soon, for living too disconnected from it for so long.
Post notes: Today I’ll be attending a small discussion on the back-to-the-land movement in Floyd, which started in the 70’s. It’s been called together for a student doing a dissertation on the subject. Fred First invited me and I invited my friend Jayn, a devotee of the simple life. The thoughts written here reflect what I’ve been thinking in preparation for the exchange. Should be interesting… P.S. My corn is much taller than that now and will be ready to pick any day now. This photo was taken a few weeks ago.
July 23rd, 2008 9:21 am
Very interesting entry and we should all live simply. I can’t believe it has been 22 years?!
July 23rd, 2008 9:24 am
Sherry, you’re such a flower child. I love you.
July 23rd, 2008 11:32 am
I keep saying it is a wonderful way to live life!
July 23rd, 2008 11:56 am
Homesteading is a good way to go. Even farmers sometimes need to be reminded that the land is what is important, not the money you can make off it.
July 23rd, 2008 1:55 pm
Floyd is indeed a special place! I don’t live as simply as many but when I’m here I definitely live with the earth!
July 23rd, 2008 4:58 pm
Floyd seems like such a wonderful, almost mythological place. It’s nice of you to share it with us so openly.
July 23rd, 2008 11:34 pm
I could so get into moving somewhere and living the simple life. I am trying to simplify some here. Getting rid of “things”. Who needs all these things anyway? Sounds like you found the perfect place to live your life.
July 24th, 2008 12:34 am
Reading your post, I am reminded of Scott and Helen Nearing and their simple, self-sufficient life in NH and then Maine. They built their homes themselves, created stone walls around their gardens to keep the animals out, grew their own food, carved their eating utensils from wood. Scores of homesteaders would gather around in the summer and help them work while Helen fed them soup she made from the garden’s produce. I remember how Scott took big chunky veggies and fruit to eat when he went on road trips to lecture. Then he decided at 100 he had outlived his usefulness here on earth and chose to starve himself to death.
I wanted to order another of their books I could not find at the bookstore so I researched and called the telephone number for their private publishing company. It was their home (they were the publishers!), a home where there had been no phone until Scott became ill. She answered the phone and told me she had just come in from the garden, barefoot and tired. She added she might just do the same thing Scott had when the time was right. (She was about 20 years younger than Scott). A week or so later the book arrived in a mailing envelope which had 3-4 addresses before mine, all crossed out. Recycled from Helen to me – I smiled and saved it.
She died in a car accident a year or 2 later on a New England road. Their books about Living the Good Life are marvelous reads and their home remains in Harborside, Maine as a testimony to and educational center about their years of living a simple and self-sufficient very good life.
Floyd is indeed a very special place. I enjoyed this post very much and the opportunity it gave me to walk down memory lane. Now I must close and go read about Mara. I have missed a post! :))
July 24th, 2008 6:50 am
so much happiness in simplicity
July 24th, 2008 8:50 am
I read those very books and was inspired by them. Thanks for reminding me. That is an amazing story about Helen answering the phone!
July 24th, 2008 12:51 pm
I so admire the way you live your life Colleen…A psrt of me wishes I could do the same…Sinplifying is certainly a better way to live for many reasons. But I am afraid I would not–at this point in my life–be able to really live that simpler life….I guess—especially at my age and with my Health concerns, I am too entrenched in the life I lead. But I read about Floyd and you and think…Gee, it would be wonderful to live as you do. Lovely post, as always.
July 24th, 2008 1:18 pm
From reading your blog, I know that you live a rich life, Naomi. And by that I do not mean rich in things. I love that there is such a diversity of lifestyles one can pursue. And you grow beautiful plants, which keeps you close to the nature.
July 24th, 2008 1:23 pm
We’re ready to join you, we just need the real estate market to cooperate!
October 9th, 2013 10:37 pm
[…] 3. I’ve never been comfortable with extravagant or abstract wealth. Since I was young girl, I’ve had awareness that land, water, and food are what define whether one is rich or poor. So much of the rest is a social phenomenon of modern day capitalism, consumerism, and media. More on “Why Floyd?” HERE. […]