Our family sponsors a young girl, the same age as Boo, across the world in Ethiopia. We are encouraged to write her letters but so many thoughts go through my head when I start letters to this child. I tell her how much we love the outdoors, animals, and reading. I tell her what subjects Boo likes in school and I answer the questions she’s asked of us. I find myself carefully editing our life, because I find myself embarrassed at what we have. When I send photos of our family I find myself consciously pulling out the ones that show the interior of our house, because I don’t want her to compare our white walls and wood floors to her mud walls and dirt floors. I started a letter in my journal for myself as an exercise to highlight the obnoxious, enormous gap I feel between her world and the one I live in. It’s a compilation of time, and filled with sarcasm, so take with a grain of salt*:

Dear L,

Thank you for your recent letter! I was excited to learn that your favorite food is meat. What kind of meat? Organic? Grass fed? Hormone free? We like meat too, our freezer is full of pre-made meals that I can heat up in seconds. We have been talking about going vegan, except maybe we’ll allow ourselves to eat eggs because I think it would be so great to have chickens. They’d be mostly pet chickens though, an exotic fluffy breed that are friendlier to children. And we’ll have to have a “chunnel” around the yard so that the dogs and hawks won’t bother them. I love that word: chunnel. It’s a yard tunnel for a chicken. Genius. I hope to one day build a chicken coop that matches our 1950’s ranch house. Wouldn’t that be adorable?

My car is in the shop which means we are down to only one car this week. This is a huge inconvenience, mostly because my daughter has so many after school activities and shuttling her around is going to take a lot of careful coordination. And getting to the grocery store? Ugh. More coordination and headache. I have seriously considered looking into this new mail order service that delivers all the ingredients to my doorstep so I never have to set foot in a grocery store again. There are just too many choices there anyways. The average grocery store here carries over 42,000 items. I purchase at least 100 of those items on any one trip.

Well, it’s official…the worst has happened: We have crabgrass. It’s basically a death sentence for your lawn here. But rest assured, there is an entire aisle of toxic chemicals at the hardware store that we can choose from to eradicate it…for a few months. If we decide to go that route then we’ll have to start the process all over again, yearly. Maybe people are probably already talking about our yard because we didn’t cut it last week and it’s already about 8 inches high. We had a ton of rain over the weekend, probably washing all the toxic chemicals from the neighborhood down into the intricate drainage systems America has which eventually head toward the river.

Our water filter on the refrigerator has been on RED for the last week. This is basically the worst thing that can happen to your water.  I know you don’t have running water in your home, but just for a moment imagine if you did…and then imagine that the filter was FIVE days over its expiration date. I promise I was being responsible and ordered new filters through Amazon Prime when my refrigerator’s filter indicator turned YELLOW so they’d be here on time. But then my Amazon Prime took THREE days to get here and then the filters weren’t even the right size. It took me at least 20 minutes to print off a return slip so the UPS guy could pick the box back up right at my back door because the wireless printer wasn’t talking to my laptop or the iPad. When I finally had a chance to order another box of them, making certain the SKU numbers matched up, I decided to order a year’s supply to try and avert another water crisis. We get treated water from the city (delivered via pipes straight to FIVE different access points within our house) but still…imagine all the toxins we’ve been ingesting over the last 5 days. I know you have to lug your water across town in big water jugs but please: make sure the filter hasn’t expired.

We ran out of GoGoSqueezes yesterday and for a few moments I thought my kid might not have enough food to get her through until 3pm when school lets out. In case you don’t know what GoGoSqueezes are they are little packets of pre-portioned pureed apples that you can suck down in about 14 seconds. They rarely get recycled so then they probably sit in the landfill for approximately 235 years, but they are just so darn convenient because you don’t have to use a spoon or bite straight into an actual apple.

The trash truck forgot to pick up our trash again which means the trash cans will be overflowing by next week. We have a truck that comes by once a week to pick up all the trash we accumulate but they should really come twice a week because I swear they reduced the size of our trash bin this year.** Prices go up, service goes down. Seems to be a common theme these days. We know that most of the trash should actually be going in the recycle bin but it’s easier just to chuck it in the trash can because we are just so darn busy: ain’t nobody got time for that.   <—omg YouTube is so funny. 

My phone has been so slow lately! Probably because I have 2,642 photos on it. 1,245 of the photos are of our dogs. How many photos has your family taken of you lately? I can share photos instantly to my relatives across the U.S. within seconds, as long as my Wi-Fi is cooperating, which is never. It goes down at least once a month. The cell service is horrendous in the nearby national park too…I get really frustrated when I have to delay sharing my photos of my family enjoying the outdoors.

I can’t stand the ceramic tile in our kitchen right now. It’s fully functional but it doesn’t look anything like the dream kitchens I see on Pinterest. Are you on Pinterest? I’ve got a few Pinterest boards started with ideas for that chicken house I mentioned earlier. I’ve even got a secret board with project ideas no one will ever know about. 

Our laundry has been piling up. My expensive yoga pants are NEVER supposed to be washed with cotton clothing and now they are embarrassingly pilled. They’ll never be the same. Thank goodness Gap’s Friends and Family was extended a day so I could restock.

Does your school do the Scholastic book orders? We were going to pre-order the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book but they only offer it in paperback. I couldn’t bring myself to order it, because it wouldn’t match the other hardback copies we have. It’s my OCD. (Note: Sometimes I use the words “OCD” as a substitute for “anal.”)

So there’s supposedly a new strain of lice this year. Nightmare. But no worries, I have all these essential oils. Does your family use Young Living oils or DoTerra oils? Just wondering. Anyway, after my daughter washes her hair each night we braid it tightly and then I mist her with the “Purification” scent. Then I mist myself in it. Then I mist the dogs in it, even though dogs can’t get lice but at least they smell good. Then I mist the entire house in it. It’s only like $20 a bottle.

Hey, what an amazing job your community’s church is doing to help the needs of the local children. I think we have about 300 churches within in a 25 mile radius. You could visit a new one almost every day of the year if you wanted to.

Promise me you’ll keep this a secret but I told my daughter that Disneyland was closed this year. And that the American Girl store was closed too. You’d never believe it if I told you that one-day of tickets for my family costs more than your family’s yearly income.

*****

My dear L,

This list could of on forever and most of it you will never understand. Maybe that will save me some of the guilt I feel about all the excess and waste I see and contribute to each day. There’s no excuse for it to ever come from myself or my family. We know better. 

You asked me to pray that you will have peace. You are eight years old and that is all you have asked of me. That simple request breaks my heart in two but also heals it right back up again with hope.

I see you. Your photo is my daily reminder to continue to give away all of this privilege and to pursue a life of less convenience. 

You are a blessing to our family. I hope we will be a blessing to yours. 

Love,

me

*I would never in a million years send this letter to an 8-year-old living in poverty in Ethiopia. I know from experience that I actually have to write that out.
**I am not referring to Bryson City trash pickup. 

We’ve made a lot of changes around here in the last two years, but we still have a long way to go. We learn, we change, we get sucked back in and start all over again. For example, last week I watched the horrific video of a sea turtle having a straw extracted from its nose. I couldn’t sleep that night. I can’t get the image out of my head. 500 million straws are consumed each day in the U.S.?! I can’t even wrap my head around 500 million, and all it takes is me saying: I don’t need a straw, but thank you. A few months ago we bought stainless steel straws, just one small step in this huge cycle of single-use madness. You know, I never do this, but here’s my soapbox for one second: If that turtle broke your heart, do something. I love how fast injustice gets out on social media these days but my biggest hope is that all the passionate, fiery voices on social media actually go out and do something about what is breaking their heart. It’s too easy to click “like” to show support and then never do anything beyond that. There’s even a term for it now: slacktivism. I’m guilty of it as well.  Other small-big steps: switching all our cleaning products and pest control to eco-friendly. Another step: this week we are working on getting our fall garden in place and a better composting system figured out among other things.  None of it adds convenience or security, but it sure feels right and good and exciting. But the gaps are still enormous: between countries, neighborhoods, humans and animals.

Thus it was.

I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.

Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.

 –Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

It helps that we’ve surrounded ourselves with so many like-minded friends, like my friend Harper who recently wrote this post for BCO on her life of simplicity (and outdoor adventures) with her husband Ben:

@harperdavison on Instagram

Or our friend Dwayne who has been living out of his truck for the last month and traveling cross country with his dog Bobby. He also does all my web work which can get a little tricky based on how far he has ventured into the wilderness:

@dwayneparton on Instagram

Many more that I’ll share another time…. 

Reduce the gaps.