Urban Pilgrim
I am intrigued by the title of an article I ran across in the BCBS Insight Journal, “Urban Hermit: A Different Way of Being in the World.” While I love the idea of living like a modern-day Thoreau, in a sweet little cabin somewhere off in the woods, I’m pretty sure the reality of it would totally do me in…unless, of course, it was a very cushy cabin…with a nice, clean, flush toilet…and no mice, or snakes, or bugs!
Also, I would want to have access to meaningful, human interaction on a regular basis (as Thoreau did), and to books and to the world of ideas, so this cushy little cabin would have to be within walking distance of a coffee shop. And maybe a diner. And there’d have to be internet access, of course.
So it gets complicated.
I value time alone, but I don’t really want to be a hermit.
I love simplicity, but I know that everything depends on everything else…which makes life complex.
So instead of being an Urban Hermit, I think I want to be an Urban Pilgrim. I want to live in an urban environment, but I don’t want to withdraw into it. I want to live this life as an intentional journey. Looking outward as well as in. With time alone. But also with fellow travelers. And I want to travel as lightly as I can.
So…I’m going to check out a book mentioned in the article, which also has a title that intrigues me. New Slow City: Living Simply in the World’s Fastest City, by William Powers (2014). It’s an account of how he and his wife “jettisoned 80 percent of their belongings and moved from their 2,000-square-foot townhouse in Queens, across the river to a 350-square-foot micro-apartment in Greenwich Village. It chronicles their attempt to live slowly and mindfully in frantic Manhattan.”
Sounds like a great little guide book!