439

 Travelling light

Many years ago, my ex partner and I went to southern France. We travelled there by train from England. I thought I was travelling very light. I would not bring a suitcase with me, but I would still bring personal care items, some makeup items, a swimsuit, a couple of different outfits, spare shoes. 

In a couple of days, my partner and I will be going to Bornholm where his family has a summer house. I don't have any personal possessions in the summer house, but there is a bed, kitchen, towels and hopefully a bar of soap. We will travel by train and ferry, and for the journey I will wear my uniform. Shorts, a basic top and a shirt. With me, I will bring my laptop (and its charger), mobile internet, phone (I will charge it via the laptop), cotton pouch with my bank card, water bottle, sunscreen (for both my partner and I), a tin with petroleum jelly (for both my partner and I), toothbrush, toothpaste (shared), two basic tops, one pair of shorts, underwear, a large woollen scarf, and a cotton tote bag to pack all of these items into and also to use for grocery shopping, walks, and the beach. It might seem odd that I intend to bring a woollen scarf with me in summer, but here in the Nordics this item doesn't feel seasonal. At times, it's cold in the evenings. I also use it to protect myself from the rain, to sit on the ground. Or I would wrap my laptop in it. 

In Denmark, we have a right to swim naked, and for this reason I am not bringing a swimsuit with me. In fact, I don't even own one and I don't plan to invite one into my life. I believe that swimming naked in seas, lakes and rivers should be a human right. I don't want synthetic fabrics to separate me from nature. Generally, it feels to me that here in the Nordics humans have a gentle and understanding attitude towards swimming naked, and I've not had issues with it here. I also plan to generally avoid wearing clothes as much as possible. Apart from connecting with outer nature, I want to connect with my body which is of course also nature. I want to see the scars and stretch marks uncovered, in the bright light and feel love towards them. I want to feel sorrow about the system that makes humans feel bad about our "imperfect" bodies. The summer house is by the sea, and there are not many fellow humans walking by. 

When I need to wear clothes, I will wear my uniform (shorts, basic top, linen shirt) for all occasions. If any of my clothes get dirty, I will wash them by hand. 

I am not bringing shampoo with me because sea water usually makes my hair feel very clean, and more generally I don't need anything apart from water to wash my hair in the short-term. My hair's texture also changes by the sea, and I'm curious to experience it again. While I hope there is a soap bar to wash my hands in the summer house, my partner and I will buy one if there is none. I don't want to travel with one just in case, and if we buy a soap bar, my partner's brother and his family will use it after us. 

On my journey, I will have to find places to refill my water bottle. Usually, I simply ask fellow humans in cafes if I can refill it. I have never had issues with this. At times, at least in Swedish cafes, there are taps where one can refill their water bottle. At other times, the staff are incredibly helpful and fill my water bottle with very cold water. Recently, I gave to charity the other water bottle that I had. 

The journey is three hours or so, and I will not be bringing any food. It's interesting that usually humans can go for many hours without food between, say, lunch and dinner, but even a short journey is somehow different. I think that if we get very hungry, we can buy something (e.g., fruits) on the go. 

At home, I have a beautiful stone that my partner picked up on a beach in Denmark and gave to me as a gift. I will not bring it with me because I plan to spend much time on the beach in Bornholm looking at wonderful stones. I will borrow one from nature to temporarily decorate the room we will be living in. 

I will not bring any just in case items with me. Generally when I travel I don't think about various scenarios, as it can encourage more consumption and packing more than necessary. On some occasions over the years I've found myself in a situation where I would need to buy painkillers or plasters, but it was not a big deal. I used them up afterwards. Plus, a bank card is lighter than almost any other item I am bringing. Instead of buying just in case items, I would rather have a tiny fund to buy them if the situation arises. Borrowing from fellow humans is always an option, and on many occasions I have borrowed things from fellow humans I didn't know at all (and fellow humans borrowed from me as well). 

Something that helps me is inviting into my life only those items that are durable, high quality and preferably multi-functional. For example, the water bottle that I've kept is insulated. I use it for both water and hot drinks. The basic tops I live with were sold as underwear, but I use them both under my shirts and as tops. The shoes I live with last a long time and are very unlikely to break. If something happens to them, I can walk barefoot. 

438

 Where I started my minimalist journey 

I believe that my path started already in my childhood, though at that time I didn't have the right tools or the right vocabulary to understand and express my needs. I was born in a large city but I spent my childhood in a remote, rural area where I fell in love with nature. Human-made things never meant very much to me. I didn't want sentimental items, family jewellery, or sophisticated decorations in my room. Something that my family members told me was that it surprised them that I couldn't come up with anything when they asked me what furniture I wanted to have. Due to sensory processing sensitivity, I always gravitated towards gentle colours that don't overstimulate my psyche. 

I left my family home in my late teens and moved to another country. I didn't take much with me. Everything I took with me fitted in a tote bag and a backpack. I did accumulate objects in the new country but probably already back then my home would seem very minimalist.

For this reason, I've never done a full scale decluttering. But in my early 20s I still wanted to understand what I lived with and why, what served me and what did not, analyse my relationships with objects and my consumption pattern. There were certainly some categories of objects that I used to buy and that I don't buy now, such as makeup and various clothes. It coincided with me wanting to step on a sustainability path for ecological reasons too.  

I don't think there is a formula for decluttering or a perfect way to do it. Some fellow humans turn it into a game of some kind. They start with some area of their home and go though all of them. Or they focus on the number of object. Or they pack everything away and bring back only what they use and let go of the rest. When I asked my fellow humans in my social circle about their journeys (or when I simply observed them), they all used different ways to change their relationships with objects. One fellow human started with their hobbies, another one with their clothes.

I started with my personal care. It was not because it was the most cluttered category or the most expensive one, or took the most space. I wanted to start where the spiritual return (in terms of my personal growth) would immediately be the highest. And this would then help me change my relationship with myself, which would then help me change my relationships with objects and spheres of consumption. I stopped wearing makeup overnight. I just quit it. I started to use less stuff and love my body and my hair more. At that time, hair straighteners were popular in England where I lived. I gave them away and promised to myself to never use them again in my life, to celebrate my natural wavy hair every day. I wanted to let my skin heal. I wanted to smell like a human being and not like factory-made perfumes.  When I started using less, I very quickly saw the benefits such as calmer and healthier skin. I felt on the somatic level the benefits of living with less. I learned that I was enough.

It took a while for me to reach my current pattern of consumption. In the beginning, I still had more products. Right now my personal care products are as in the picture above. They include a toothpaste (shared), toothbrush, and sunscreen (shared). There is also a small metal tin with petroleum jelly that we have in our household. I don't usually use it. I use it only to cover a small eventual scratch (instead of a plaster), or a crack in my skin (I live with an autoimmune skin condition), or for my partner's child's needs. My partner uses it at times too. We keep it instead of a natural balm because it lasts many years and doesn't go bad. I oftentimes joke that the only personal care item I have is a toothbrush. In our household we have soap and shampoo. I use soap only for my hands (and water for everything else). And the shampoo I use very occasionally. 

After personal care, I focused on my clothes. This domain was also important to accept myself and my body as is. These days, I wear the same outfit every day. Then I focused on the kitchen and the furniture. My ex partner and I donated many of our possessions to charities and gave many to the neighbours we knew personally. Giving items to our neighbours was probably the best way to let go of objects because we knew that those persons would benefit from the items that were not serving us.