Simple living in Jamaica (old-ish white lady style)🇯🇲
Part 1: what simple living means to me and how I ended up embracing what I consider a simple life.
Hello there,
Earlier this year, I had the honor of having my story told on the Chocolate Taoist’s publication (you can read it here if you missed it) and in answering the thought-provoking questions he sent me in preparation for the article, I spent a fair amount of time contemplating what simple living means to me, why I chose it, and how it has changed my life.
I went back through all of the essays that I have shared here and I saw a (now glaringly obvious to me) gaping hole in my publication to not have even one essay that talks about simple living when my publication is called Simple Mindful Living for Wellbeing.
It felt like a duh moment.
Did I mention that sharing my writing in any public form is new for me as of 2023? I have been writing since my teens and have only shared my writing with teachers whose class I was in and doing a writing assignment for. I also didn’t do any “homework” about starting a blog or online publication…I just started with my favorite kind of plan: the no plan plan. In true Deanna fashion, I am forging my own unique path as I go and it makes me laugh to look back and realize that I have never shared an essay about my version of simple living yet simple living is right there in the title of my publication.
Lesson: Yet another opportunity to practice compassion for myself and to not take this journey of life and writing so seriously. I have chosen to not have a thought-out plan for this publication so that I feel unencumbered to write from the heart and when I feel called. Now I am answering the call I hear to share about what simple living means to me, how I embody it, and how it has helped me immensely in my practice of cultivating inner peace and equanimity.
How and why did I choose to create a simple life for myself? I never google’d “simple living” and decided yes! Simple living is for me. In fact, until a few moments ago, I have never google’d simple living. A google search of “simple living” returned a whopping 771,000,000 search results. To me, that is a staggering number and makes me wonder why there is so much information out there about simple living…isn’t it supposed to be simple? 771,000,000 results doesn’t feel simple to me, just sayin’. On the other hand, I felt an unexpected hope for the world when I saw this number because maybe, just maybe, there are enough people in the world right now that are at least curious about living more simply to help shift the collective towards a more harmonious way of existing outside of the heavily promoted and ingrained capitalist lifestyle. Just maybe. I continue to hold hope for humanity, no matter what.
Simple living doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone and how to create a simple life is as unique as each of us, hence at least one reason for the staggering number of google hits for these two little words. There is no tried and true recipe, there is no set must-do list. We are all just making it up as we go.
What does simple living mean to me? (side note: this could be an insightful journal prompt for you if simple living and journaling are of interest to you. I’d also be tickled to have you drop your thoughts into the comments so we can vibe on this question together).
To me, living a simple life means to approach life with a lens of intention to choose thoughts, habits, and practices that cultivate simplicity. Choosing a simple life means living within my means, cultivating contentment with what I have, and not hoarding resources (remember those early pandemic days in the states where no one could find toilet paper in the stores? At least that’s what I remember hearing as I was tucked away in quarantine with my husband in Cusco, Peru where we saw no shortage of toilet paper or anything else in the stores).
Simple living means learning to be deeply ok with enough. Enough money, enough food, enough water, enough clothes. Simple living means not always striving for more, not always desiring more, and feeling deep gratitude in my bones and in my gut for exactly what I already have. Enough.
A likkle backstory of my journey to the simple life that I am living today
First, I digress with a funny anecdote about ‘likkle’: Every time I use the word likkle in a message to my mom, she thinks I spelled it wrong. I think I even have this word on my website somewhere because she kindly informed me of this spelling error and when I told her it is Jamaican Patois for ‘little’ she suggested I change it so that people don’t think I can’t spell. Chuckle. Love my mom.
The promised backstory begins here: Moving to Jamaica in 2018 was a grand gesture to my dedication to changing my life on every level and a deepening of my journey to creating a life based in harmony and simplicity. By 2017, I was beyond tired of 300 emails in my work inbox everyday and even more tired of waking up in tears, wishing my life was different. My journey to the simple life that I live today has so many starting points (a great lesson learned and embodied that we can always, always, start again):
🩵 2011: when I left my first husband of 18 years and took only my clothes and the cal-king sized mattress that my sister gifted me after her divorce a few years earlier. I remember sleeping on a twin-sized air mattress for two weeks in my new apartment until the bed would arrive and eating Panda Express out of red party cups on my grandmother’s quilt on the floor in the dining room with a dear friend that first night because I had no furniture (and many nights after that, truth be told)
🩵 2013: my first solo travel to Maui showed me that I didn’t need to travel with a suitcase or a plan (and that this could become my way of living, not just traveling)
🩵 2015: now I have about 70 pairs of fancy high heels, all stored neatly in their boxes and stacked in the bottom of my closet. This was the height of my Tinder-ing days and I dressed the part with enthusiasm and a huge closet that was bursting at the seams: San Francisco/Oakland night out clothes, school administrator clothes, weekend mom clothes, and of course, clothes in all of these categories for all of the seasons (SF East Bay weather requires layers most of the year). This was also the first year that I went to Jamaica and spent two nights with a lovely soul I met on Tinder in his humble home with no electricity in MoBay. He opened my eyes to other ways of existing in a way that touched my soul.
🩵 2017: I begin to deeply recognize my growing hatred for all of the laundry that I had to do on my days off. I dreaded the mocking pile of laundry that seemed to feed on itself at night only to rise as an ugly monster to greet me every morning, adding to the tears that I was already shedding over the seemingly impossible task of loving my life. I thought to myself: if I had less clothes, I would have less laundry to do (or maybe if I did it more regularly instead of waiting until there was a huge pile it wouldn’t be so overwhelming…nope, less clothes felt like the right answer)
Side note: I published an article on my website blog last summer titled 3 Steps I took to Simplify My Life so I could move to Jamaica that I would be stoked to have you read and connect with me about.
That growing hatred of laundry and lamenting spending my free time that way was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back propelling me in earnest to stop my crying, to take my life back, and to commit to always wearing the lens of intention to cultivate simplicity in every area of my life.
Spoiler: when I moved to Jamaica in 2018, everything I owned fit in two carry-on backpacks. 70 pairs of high heels were no more (and Tinder was also no more).
Look out for future installments of Simple living in Jamaica (old-ish white lady style) to find out what I did with all of my stuff before moving here, what my reality of simple living in Jamaica really looks and feels like, and what simple living means to my husband and his friends (we had so much fun one day calling all of his friends and asking them about simple living and writing down what they shared).
If you have read this far, you are one of my peeps and please show this article your love by giving it a 🩵, sharing it, and/or restacking it. When you show your love, it helps to spread my writing farther so that it may reach others who may benefit from my words.
A deep bow and a simple lotus for you,
Deanna 🙏🪷
P.S. The paid option is turned on for my publication if you feel inclined to support my work financially. I have decided to always keep my content free so if you choose to pay, it is because you value me and my writing and wish to show this by helping me to buy cheese and coffee. 🧀☕️🩵🫂
For sure, I’m a peep.
The images you share here make me long to toss all my shoes and clothes, and only have a few things. Alas, Seattle weather means dress in layers. Yet, I still hope to begin to shed much of my old work-outside-the-house clothes.😜.
Yes, please write more about how you got from here to there. 💕
So much to respond to here 😁
First, I love your mom. And it's funny, every time I see the word likkle I also worry for you about people who don't know what it means. For me, it's second nature but for anyone else it may not be.
Second, i LOOOVE that you and your husband asked Jamaican friends about simple living. I can't wait to read that post. I used to interview Jamaicans for my old blog about things they may not understand and the responses were hilarious. Like, I once asked a few of them how they felt about the fact that in Canada we call a "marina" (the tanktop) a "wifebeater." 100% of them were shocked and slightly offended 🤣🤣
And finally, I love your simple living style. I miss my simple days in Jamaica. Although I did have hot water in my first apartment, but not my second one. And some days I had NO water.
Thank you for sharing this Deanna!