Honest Simplicity

I am reading The Big Tiny for the second time after lending it out to friends. In her memoir, Dee Williams invites the reader along for a raw look into her winding journey to simplicity. At times, her humor makes me laugh out loud, with tears running down my cheeks. In other moments, I can feel her tangible sadness and doubt. Though her joys far outweigh any disappointments, Dee doesn’t sugar coat the struggles she faced in downsizing her life into an 84-square foot home on wheels. On the process of letting go of her belongings, she writes, “I didn’t plan for this sort of hardship; I thought getting rid of stuff would be a simple matter of elbow grease and logic. Feelings of loss or remorse weren’t supposed to be a factor….I thought I would be beyond all of that.” Her story is uplifting and beautiful in its honesty. The lessons she’s learned challenge us to review our own meaning of happiness, our relationship to stuff, and to question how much is really enough. She writes,”…I stumbled into a new sort of ‘happiness’, one that didn’t hinge on always getting what I want, but rather, on wanting what I have. It’s the kind of happiness that isn’t tied so tightly to being comfortable (or having money and property), but instead is linked to a deeper sense of satisfaction–to a sense of humility and gratitude, and a better understanding of who I am in my heart.”  I find her words inspiring to say the least.  My husband and I were extremely pleased to have the privilege of meeting her last spring while she was on her book tour.  She was just the down-to-earth, funny, relatable person I expected her to be.

meeting Dee Williams at the Tattered Cover