I met an extrodinary woman this autumn. She has been wealthy. She has been poor. She has borne children and buried some of them. For a living she uses some of the most advanced technology available and for fun she employs some of the more primitive technologies of American history. Among the things she has learned in her life is that living simply is indeed simple.

She is one of those lucky individuals who has managed to create a job for herself that allows her to work from home via FAX, modem and telephone. But during the summer, for fun, she took a part-time job giving tours of a water-powered grain mill. Using the grain from this mill, she has made many loaves of her own bread. Next year she plans to grow her own grain and to follow it from seed to loaf along its entire journey. In the process she has learned about the people who built the mill, brought their grain to it, lived and worked around it.

She tells me a friend accused her of having a "third world, mud hut mentality." This opinion was predicated on his observation that she lived in a log cabin in the mountains, grew her own vegetables, made her clothes, and bathed in rain water, among other things. Her "third world, mud hut mentality" has shown her that working hard physically makes her healthy and alert. Making the things that tempt her rather than buying them gives her pleasure twice, once in the learning and creating and once in having a beautiful or useful thing. Using resources carefully and wisely helps her to be creative about turning the things that others might thrown away into things that are both lovely and useful.

She also has learned that living simply is less stressful than the ways she has lived before. She does not concern herself with what others are wearing or serving when company comes. The food on her table is fresh from the oven or garden, made with the greatest care, as were her clothes. She is comfortable with herself at last, without the crutches of addictions, which she has managed to put aside, or damaging relationships, which she has likewise put behind her.

This woman has traveled many roads during her life, boulevard as well as superhighway, but found
that the dirt of the counrty lane is most friendly to her feet. Without traveling those others she probably would not have recognized where she really wanted to be and indeed might not have been the woman who today is happy on this path.

I have asked myself what I learned from meeting this woman. I do not long to travel her road, as appealing as it may seem, because I have my own journey to make at this time in my life. But I have learned about side trips, seeing the sites as I go, choosing another road when the way becomes something that is taking me somewhere I don't want to go. Or giving some thought to taking a road simply because it seems the next logical thing to do. I have learned that complicated living is something we do to ourselves and can enjoy or change, whichever we choose. I think the mud hut mentality is something I could strive toward.