Lessons from My Hot Little House

Sometimes discomfort has something to teach us…

It’s hot here.

Not Florida hot. Not Arizona hot.

Wyoming hot…. Which I know isn’t as bad as some places and I shouldn’t be whining.

BUT. Considering I wore a coat for a good portion of our horsemanship clinic just two weeks ago, these high-90s days feel like… a lot.

And it’s especially noticeable because, for the first time in over ten years, I don’t have central air.

That’s not particularly unusual in Wyoming, but when you’ve gotten used to it for over a decade, living without it feels different… in ways I didn’t really expect.

Here’s what this hot little house has been teaching me:

Because yes, I’m sweaty. A lot. (I had sweat dripping in my eyeballs when I was painting my closet last week…) But I’m also much more aware.

• I now notice the difference between an 82-degree day and a 92-degree day.
• I know exactly when it’s time to throw the windows open in the evening, and exactly when to shut them and pull the blinds in the morning to capture as much of the cool air as possible.
• I know exactly when the wind shifts or a storm rolls through because I’m sprinting around the house slamming windows before the neighbor’s topsoil infiltrates my home.
• I’ve been line drying laundry more (because the dryer has an internal vent and HOLY MOLY, it’s like a furnace)… but it makes me happy every time I look out and see clothes on the line. I haven’t done that in nearly 16 years. It’s another little step in coming back to myself.
• I’m spending far more evenings sitting on the porch than I ever did at the old house, which means I’m watching the thunderheads build, hearing the nighthawks, and relishing in the feel of soft evening air on my skin. (In the past, I would’ve been wrapped in a blanket because the air conditioning kept the house so cold. And that always felt backwards to me.)
• I’ve worn shorts enough that my legs are actually getting mildly tan, which maybe has never happened before??
• And when a thunderstorm finally rolls through or we get one of those rare cool days? It is glorious. I FEEL every bit of it. In my body. On my skin.

And it’s got me to thinking….

I’ve had a few conversations lately about what “Old-Fashioned on Purpose” actually means.

People are quick to try to turn it into rules and lists, which makes my hackles stand up. I’ve even had people tell me recently that my divorce somehow isn’t “old-fashioned on purpose.” (I could write a whole post on that… maybe I will later.)

Regardless, that completely misses the point.

Being old-fashioned on purpose—or homesteading, or slow living, or whatever the heck you want to call this sort of life I’ve been teaching and living for 16 years—has never been about following an imaginary set of lifestyle rules or pretending life always fits into neat little boxes.

It’s about paying attention.

Paying attention doesn’t automatically make us better people, but it does make us more human in a world that’s doing everything it can to numb us. And that’s no small thing.

So would I accept central air if someone offered to install it for free tomorrow? Probably.

I have no interest in being a martyr or earning some sort of simplicity merit badge.

But this season of sweating and opening and closing windows has got me thinking…

How sometimes convenience doesn’t just insulate us from discomfort, Sometimes it insulates us from awareness, too.

These little rhythms—whether we choose them or whether life hands them to us—pull us back into our bodies.

They help us notice the wind. The seasons. The relief of a cool evening. The smell after a thunderstorm. The satisfaction of hanging clothes on the line or opening the windows at just the right moment.

In participating in those things, we wake up in the best of ways.

And to me, that’s what Old-Fashioned on Purpose has always been about.

It’s never been about wholly rejecting modern life or being self-righteous or demanding that the old ways are ALWAYS better.

It’s just about choosing (or sometimes simply accepting) the kinds of ordinary rhythms that make us more awake to the life we’re already living.

When I compare my awareness this summer to last summer—when I hardly knew what temperature it was outside because every room stayed exactly the same—I realize this hot little house of mine isn’t all bad.

It’s made me pay attention again.

Which just so happens to be a theme of my life right now.

And I think that’s a pretty good thing.

-Jill