The mundane
Mundane is not a very nice word. It has associations with things boring and dull. Like my fellow humans in the field of post-growth, I am interested in visions of a better, more caring society living harmoniously with nature. But there is something about the mundane that makes me feel curious and inspired. I wonder why and how a more beautiful society arises (and does not arise) from and in the everyday. I like my main strand of research (degrowth business) a lot, but my autoethnography is where I feel oneness with my research. It feels alive and raw.
The setting for this research is currently my temporary place in Copenhagen. My partner and I are renting a studio apartment. The area seems expensive. Our rent is around 1500 euros a month for this small place. It is comparable to my rent in Helsinki where I paid around 900 euros for a 29 sq. m studio apartment. Here in Denmark my partner and I were restricted in terms of the area where we could live. He shares childcare responsibilities with his ex partner, so we had to live close to where the ex partner and the child live. There are beautiful green spaces nearby, one in front of our windows, but I always think that living in this beautiful area is possible because we have jobs. If it was up to me, I probably would not be living in Copenhagen, and would choose another city in Denmark. Copenhagen is very busy and expensive, the traffic is overwhelming. The city is large, and since I walk everywhere, it takes me a long time to walk from one place to another. Generally we stay in the same area where we live and the ones nearby.
Relocating to Copenhagen meant the end of my extremely minimalist lifestyle. To many our current lifestyle would seem extreme minimalist, but I can definitely tell the difference between how we live currently and how I used to live. For instance, I lived without furniture and equipment. My partner and I decided to invite some pieces of furniture into our space, mostly to organise this space better and not have as many things on the floor as we currently have. We also got a vacuum cleaner. There is more dust as there are two of us, and this studio flat is a little bit bigger than the one I lived in. To clean the floor by hand would use too much of my time. When I walked among storage rooms downstairs, I noticed that many people have vacuum cleaners. This item could definitely be shared, not everyone needs to own one. But we don't know our neighbours and still decided to buy this device.
I have only a few items of clothing, most likely less than twenty. From Finland I brought two pairs of shorts, two pairs of sweatpants, three white vests, one black vest, two white linen shirts, a large woollen scarf, a jacket, and a few small items. I don't feel that it's not enough. I've been visiting Aalborg university for a week, and no one said anything about me wearing the same clothes every day. I also wear my partner's clothes. He wears mostly white t-shirts, beige shorts and black trousers. The white shirts we share. Before moving in with me, he donated many items of clothing. We don't have a washing machine but there are shared ones in this building. I like this system a lot. When I lived in my first temporary place in Finland, there were shared washing machines too, but unfortunately many people used heavily scented laundry products. The scent would last in those machines, and would transfer onto my clothes too. Here in our apartment block in Denmark it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Everything my partner and I buy we intend to keep for the rest of our lives, so we choose slowly and intentionally. Better quality, durable and certified products are expensive, so we will get everything we need overtime. Some things that my partner brought home he inherited from his grandparents, and some items he has had for many years. But overall, we don't have much.
There are still many categories of products we exclude from our consumption. We don't have a car, a tv, and decorations. I still exclude the categories I excluded a long time ago, such as makeup, fancy clothes and bags, jewellery.
We share a lot of items. T-shirts and shirts, towels, produce bags, everything in the household, to a large degree including money as well.
Comfort is important to us. Other things that are important are growing together, being creative. At times we joke about what our families would say about this space. They would probably find it too small and empty.