My Tiny Pilgrimage
Today is my three-year anniversary of moving into my tiny house. Three whole years! Can it be true?
I love my 200 square foot house and the freedom it affords me. I love that everything I own is housed in its four walls and that each thing I possess is either used every day or is something that, as Marie Kondo would say, “sparks joy.” I love that I do not have a mortgage payment and as such, I get to make decisions about what I do and how I spend my time without money playing a huge role. I have wholeheartedly embraced the minimalist lifestyle.
It’s strange that before 2015 I never thought of myself as a minimalist. It didn’t even occur to me. Many people look at a tiny home and decide they want to make the effort to change their lifestyle. It can be a long hard process to learn to let go of things and possessions.
My path towards minimalism was very different than this. My journey towards minimalism and tiny living actually started with my divorce and subsequent decision to walk the Camino de Santiago in 2013 as a way to heal and start again.
One of the things that I think most pilgrims realize in the midst of walking the Camino is how little they really need. The first few albergues (hostels) after leaving St. Jean Pied de Port are littered with items that pilgrims have left behind. When you are walking 15 miles a day, everything becomes weight and is evaluated with that in mind. (Hence why I brought such a teeny tiny travel art kit) This is usually the first time, at least for us Americans, that accumulating things is the opposite of what everyone around you is doing. It is so pivotal to realize that not only can you survive with just what is your backpack, but there is incredible freedom in the simplicity of the pilgrim life.
I came back from that trip with an appreciation for owning less, not more. I liked the idea that everything I carried with me was essential. It was the first shift in my own thinking. I started dreaming of what my life could be like if I embraced this aspect of pilgrimage in a more profound way.
I had also been bitten with the travel bug on the Camino and I wanted more. I had lived in Spain for a year in my early 20’s but it had been 20 years since I had traveled significantly and walking the Camino awakened that dormant desire.
When I got laid off from my corporate job two and a half years later in 2015, all of these things were swirling around in my head and heart. I surmised that I was being given a divine opportunity and I decided to leap. I sold everything I owned, including all my furniture and my car, and I packed up my same Camino backpack and headed to Spain on a one-way ticket. I started my travels by walking the Camino Portugués from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela.
In February of 2016, I headed to the tiny island of Iona for an art residency. During my time there, I got to stay in a beautiful little shepherd’s bothy overlooking the sea.
It was a profound pleasure to wake up in my own private retreat tucked away from the world. The bothy was very simple, with just a few pieces of furniture, but it was beautiful and cozy, and it had everything I needed. I stayed there again in November when I returned to Iona before I headed back to the states and I began to imagine how I could continue this type of simple life back home.
It was on Iona that I decided that I would take money out of my 401k and build a tiny house. As I moved forward with my plans, the “universe conspired in helping me achieve them.”* My dear friend Tom invited me to put my tiny house on his property and my father, who was an architect, offered to create the design. In June of the following year I ordered my trailer and after finding a contractor to work with, started the construction process.
It took almost exactly one year to finish my tiny and on June 23rd, the day after I moved in, I had a huge house warming party.
I came home from my travels with a definitive plan to change my life and I think this was incredibly important for me. I knew that I did not want to return to the life I had before I walked the Camino; I wanted the simplicity I had learned to embrace as a pilgrim to be a part of my everyday life, not just something I could experience on the Camino or while traveling. For me, tiny living offered me a way to do that.
After three years of tiny living, people always want to ask me the same few questions:
Would I change anything?
No.
Do I miss things from my previous life?
Only my bathtub!
Do I think everyone should live tiny?
No. Tiny living is a specific choice and it will not work for everyone. It is perfect for me since I live alone right now. I might not live in my tiny forever. In fact, I can guarantee I probably won’t as change is inevitable.
I believe, however, that tiny living has changed me for the better. I think more about what I buy because of my space limitations. I am a more thoughtful consumer and as a result, I am a more thoughtful human. I value relationships and experiences far more than things and due to tiny living, I am freer to spend my time and money on both. For this I am grateful.
(If you want to see a wonderful video of my tiny created by Living Big in a Tiny House, click here)
*Paulo Coelho
