First, a quick look back at March’s small change – handwashing our laundry.  I’m still doing it!  It’s turned out to not be much more work, our clothes are way cleaner, and I don’t have to listen to the hideous machine chugging.  Woo hoo!  A quick lesson that hand washing taught me, which can be applied to machine washing also – almost all of our loads of laundry take at least two, sometimes as many as four, changes of rinse water before the water is clear.  Whoa!  When you wash in a machine, you can’t see the rinse water of course, and most machines only have one rinse (you can just back it up and run from the rinse cycle again).  To check if your water is still dirty, you could dip in a cup and see if the water is dirty or clear.  Truly, this has been astonishing, and has made our clothes so much cleaner, it’s sort of shocking.  Hope it’s useful to some of you!

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(photo by Ben)

Looking forward, our change in April sounds very simple, but I think it is truly the hardest one (for me personally at least) – staying home.  To be very clear up front, I’m not just talking about a mother staying home with her children.  I mean a more general choice to stay home instead of going out, whenever possible.  This is challenging for so many reasons – we feel guilty for not visiting friends, we feel we really really must have x from the store right now, we’re going a bit stir crazy, we feel that we would be happier if only we were somewhere else.  This is especially hard for parents of young children, I think, but at the same time, especially important.  I often find myself drawn to public places, because there are more distractions for my daughter and I don’t have to “work” as hard.  But she pretty much always gets overstimulated, and then is much more cranky, grumpy, and cantankerous for hours or even days afterward.  It’s taken me a while, but I began to notice the difference when we just had a day at home (with time outside, but not time in places like the library or going anywhere in the car).  Even knowing this, that it ends up being more unpleasant in the long run, I often find myself fighting the urge to go into town.

So why stay home, other than to create a more peaceful toddler?  Last winter, I found the book Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping after seeing it on Vintage Chica’s booklist.  It’s a great read, full of practical tips on various household work, and most enlightening to me, a lot of space dedicated to seeing your home as a spiritual place, deserving of tending and care.  For me, this was a revelation that I think I had been longing for – Mrs. Dunwoody prompted me to see household work as an act of love for myself and my family, and to create my first daily household chore list.  I was amazed what a difference it made.

I had felt for some time how empty and cold the house felt when we all came home from being at the bakery all day – how it felt like living in a hotel instead of a home (a hotel with shabby housekeeping at that!), but I hadn’t really understood why or how to change that. I’ve been inspired too, of course, by some many amazing women bloggers, who show us daily how they work to create true homes, sanctuaries for their families.  In Judaism, the Hebrew word for home means “little temple,” which I think is an incredible reminder.  Sharon Astyk in her excellent book Depletion and Abundance proposes using the money a family would normally spend on vacation to instead transform your home into paradise.

Ben and I have both loved making more effort to spend more time here, tending our nest, but often we find ourselves pulled to the bakery due to staff changes or seasonal business.  Sometimes, once we are in the habit of going in often, we can get stuck in that routine.  So this month is a reminder that while we love our bakery, and we love our community, our peace and strength come from a strong, peaceful home base.  It’s a small change I hope to carry with us beyond this month, and also, a step towards balance.  It’s a family decision, and also an environmental one – how much gas do we waste shuffling ourselves back and forth all the time?  How much of our own energy and time gets used up?  Orion had a fantastic article a few months about this, which has stayed at the back of my mind ever since:

“LONG AGO the poet and bioregionalist Gary Snyder said, “The most radical thing you can do is stay home,” a phrase that has itself stayed with me for the many years since I first heard it. . . The task has only become more urgent as climate change in particular underscores that we need to consume a lot less. It’s curious, in the chaos of conversations about what we ought to do to save the world, how seldom sheer modesty comes up—living smaller, staying closer, having less—especially for us in the ranks of the privileged. . .

From outer space, the privileged of this world must look like ants in an anthill that’s been stirred with a stick: everyone constantly rushing around in cars and planes for work and pleasure, for meetings, jobs, conferences, vacations, and more. This is bad for the planet, but it’s not so good for us either. Most of the people I know regard with bemusement or even chagrin the harried, scattered lives they lead. Last summer I found myself having the same conversation with many different people, about our craving for a life with daily rites; with a sense of time like a well-appointed landscape with its landmarks and harmonies; and with a sense of measure and proportion, as opposed to a formless and unending scramble to go places and get things and do more.”

This month, I’m ready to do less, and be home more.  Which means time to prepare dinners without rushing, time to tidy as the day goes on, instead of in a cranky frenzy at the end of the day, time to plant not only vegetables but also some flowers, time to get to know my neighbors and land better, time to be together.  Obviously not everyone owns their own business, and has the flexibility of sometimes choosing to work from home.  But we do all have many choices each week, to stay home or go out.  What if we made the radical choice to stay home?

Be sure to check out the other Steps Towards Balance through Nicola’s inspiring blog Which Name?, and also the other One Small Change participants – this is the last month for One Small Change, which has been leading up to Earth Day.