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www.thistinyexistence.etsy.com

or my blog at www.thistinyexistence.com

When I was younger I had delusions of grandeur. I wanted to get into the film industry and be rich and famous. But in the last few years, as I’ve gotten married, bought a house, had a couple of kids, I’ve noticed that I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Definitely happier than I was in film school. This realization then lead me to start reading up on ideas of sustainable simple living, and the ideas really clicked with me. Living a simpler, smaller existence is about slowing down and taking time to love life. It’s about celebrating the everyday moments, celebrating the mundane. I believe that living simply does not mean you have to live like a ascetic, but rather that it means finding the balance that works for you. I love to be surrounded by beautiful things. They inspire me, slow me down to the pace of joy, and balance me. I love trying to fulfill the principles of living a simple life by, when I need something, whether it’s new plates for my kitchen, new clothing, or artwork for my walls, taking the time to find or make something I know I will love for a long time. If I am going to spend my hard earned money on something, then I want it to be something I look at everyday and love having, not something cheap I just picked up without thinking. This is not to say that I am always perfect in these goals, rather that this is the life that I aspire to. I aspire to live simply and elegantly, taking joy in my children, in a well-organized shelf, in a neat bedside or a beautiful garden, just as I take joy in drawing and sewing these things.

I love embroidery for the meditative, slow process that it is. Every stitch is filled with purpose, love, determination, quiet thoughtfulness. Taking the time to sew a picture, instead of drawing or painting one is taking time to say, this is extra special, this is something I want to spend my precious life on. I embroider small moments of calm (as I think of them) as a way of celebrating them. Capturing a well organized shelf, a beautiful doorway is, in a way, creating a world I can escape to when my own home is overflowing with toys and noise. It is creating an ideal, applying my internal balance on an external canvas. My external life may never reflect the beautiful things which I draw and sew, but at least I can then surround myself with those beautiful things, if just in floss.

When I first chose the name This Tiny Existence and I did my due diligence to make sure no one else was already using it, I found that the references that included the words “tiny existence” tended to be expressed in a depressive, “my life is pathetic” sort of way. However, this is not how I have ever meant the name. To me, This Tiny Existence is a celebration. It’s saying, yes, I’m a small person, living in a tiny house, sewing tiny pictures of tiny household items and my sphere of influence on the world is never going to be large. I won’t be in the history books. But even if I were, my life would still mostly be filled with the everyday mundane patterns of eating, sleeping, cleaning myself, my house, my kids. Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I believe that the only problem with this sentence is the idea of the desperation. And the great joy of life is that that’s the part that is truly changeable about life. Accepting that every life is tiny when looked at through the lens of history, and accepting our own human nature and trying to work with it rather than against it, I believe that the “mass of men” can lead lives of quiet joy and balance. Therefore, I celebrate the joy of my tiny existence! I celebrate that as I write this, I am being distracted by a pair of squirrels searching for food in my front yard, I celebrate that today I get to work quietly, my family is all healthy, there is a roof over my head and food in the fridge. This all can and will change, as everything does, but today, I celebrate my tiny existence as it exists today.