Living in a small town in South Texas has been different for me. I moved back to this county after being gone for nearly 60 years. I am now living a simple life and I love it. Times have changed and I have lived a busy life in cities for 60 years. Now I am driving in the slow lane
Driving in the slow lane and living the simple life
Since I have become more or less isolated in this little town of Floresville, since I had a stroke and driving in traffic is too overwhelming to me. Then my husband passed away five days later. My family lives too far from us to just drop in and visit so I have become sort of a hermit, because I don’t see many people these days. Julie watches TV and I read and write. It is not a bad existence, really. I think God has a plan in this life that He has led me to. I am really an optimist and I choose to be happy. I am content and peaceful and that is what matters. I tell people “I am driving in the slow lane”. I am living the simple life and I love it.
One of the books I just finished reading, is William Powers’ new book “Twelve by Twelve -a one-room cabin off the grid & beyond: The American dream”. I finally met Bill Powers in Bolivia where he lives in Samaipata when he is not living in New York City. He is an environmentalist and has written three books. This book was so interesting, and made me think about life as people live it. He lived for a few months in a 12 x 12 cabin of a friend while she went to the west coast. The cabin was in a forest by a stream. Talk about “driving in the slow lane” like me, he wasn’t even driving. He didn’t even have a car. He went to town on a bicycle. He didn’t have electricity, or running water. His neighbors were families that were trying to grow gardens and chickens, hogs, and cattle organically. It was a fascinating book. It is a thoughtful book and when you read it, it will make you think!
I thought of how so many people, especially in America, are living life in the “fast lane”, trying to get bigger houses, more cars, and always trying to make more money. They never take time off or go on vacation. I have lived that life in the past!
But I have written about how my life was in the 1950’s, before TV and air conditioning, cell phones and the Internet. I call those years my “Golden Years”, when life was so simple. I loved that life. So now I am glad I am where I am. I love the simple life.
I am reading another book. I am almost through with it. Crystal Sasse Ragsdale calls it “The Golden Fleece Land”. It is the Reminisces and Letters of Women on an American Frontier. It is a fascinating book because it is about the German women who settled in Texas from about 1835 and became almost immediately involved with the Texas Revolution of 1836! They came to Texas from Germany, a well-organized society. This made me think of Chary my daughter-in-law from Bolivia, who told me about when she lived in Germany. She said she loved Germany because it was so organized and she was a person who likes things to be organized and in order. When I read that in the book, I thought of Chary. “That’s what she said!”
The letters and diaries from the German women about their lives from 1935-1900 in places like New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Seguin and San Antonio are stories of a life so hard and difficult and tragic, it makes me wonder why we as women gripe so much about our life nowadays. One woman told about her life when her mother died and her father couldn’t take care of her and her brothers and sisters, so different farmers took them in for farm laborers! As a little girl 8 years old she had to work as almost a slave for one family. She lived in San Antonio for one family and she tells of her life as a little girl working and she never had anyone to love her. She even was hired out in the summer to a family in Seguin to work in the fields. She never saw the money of course. She was only 10 years old.
I had a hard life on the farm growing up in the depression and the 1940’s, but I had a mother and father who loved me and I always felt secure in their love. It made it so much easier, and I didn’t consider my life to be a bad one. I am grateful for those hard times on the farm, because they made me what I am today. They are part of who I am. I treasure the simple life now. I am so grateful for my books and my computer where I can keep up with loved ones, and write my thoughts and stories, in this life of driving in the slow lane!
I wouldn’t trade my life for any other.I am living the simple life now!
Driving in the slow lane and living the simple life
