Have you ever see the TV programme, Naked and Afraid? I first came across it in Australia; I remember watching it in bed on New Year’s Eve. Did I just say that out loud? Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is that two people (usually one man and one woman) are dropped into a remote environment and are left to survive for 21 days. They each bring one survival item with them, oh, and they’re completely naked. I love it. Something about being at one with nature and living the simple life really appeals to me. I fancy that were I in the place of one of these survivalists, I would not only survive the 21-days, I’d really thrive.
I don’t know why I think this; it looks to be a horrendous experience. The contestants deal with extreme weather and are usually covered in bug bites. Having to catch their own food, they are often close to starvation, leaving the challenge many kilos lighter than when they arrived. They drink water thick with mud and often resort to eating insects, or worse. They also get by on very little sleep, on account of all of the above.
Routine
Now, I am not someone who is comfortable being uncomfortable. My survival item would be a lip gloss, because I can’t go more than an hour without applying it (it’s not vanity, just dry lips).
Also, I don’t do well with change or uncertainty. My family lives very comfortably in routine. Our loved ones know that if they call after 8pm, we will presume there is an emergency. Sunday afternoons are for movies (and naps) on the sofa. Our days are structured and we rarely deviate from that. Even when we travel we very quickly fall into order. In Hawaii this summer, our morning ritual saw me buying the açai bowls, my husband queuing for coffee and us meeting at the same table to have breakfast together every day.
How I think I’d cope, let alone thrive, being dropped naked into a rainforest, I don’t know.
Living with less
I also love a TV show about tiny houses. People build homes the size of a garden shed and live in them full time, either alone or as a family. That idea of simplifying your life to a place where everything you need fits into one small space speaks to me. I am always donating clothes and possessions to charity shops, or giving them away, but it feels like a never ending process. That said, I do keep buying stuff, so …
Maybe I am just overly suggestible. The other day I was reading an article in ‘Mind, Body, Spirit‘ magazine about the healing plants of Greek myth. Taking photos of key paragraphs, I really believed that I was going to start growing Vitex agnus castus and start treating my peri-menopause naturally. In reality, the nearest I will get to this is buying the book.
In the same magazine there was an article on foraging. I could see my family and I sitting down to a meal of wild mushrooms cooked in crow garlic. Maybe I should buy that book too?
The voice of reason
Every now and again, I try to convince my husband that we should buy a piece of land and build a tiny house. We could grow our own food, forage what we don’t grow; be at one with nature. Nudity optional.
Thank goodness that he is a voice of reason. He knows that I struggle to keep a house plant alive. He’s also well aware that I would go stir-crazy without a room of my own.
That is our relationship. I am full of ideas and would follow them all blindly. He tempers my enthusiasm when he knows it would lead to disaster. In return, I encourage him to be more adventurous than he would naturally be.
I can see him armour up when we watch Ben Fogle’s ‘New Lives in the Wild‘.
“Shall we convert a school van into a living space and travel around Australia in it?” I asked, after one episode where a family did just that.
This knowing full well that it would likely lead to divorce … or worse. He shot me down quickly. In my defence, I was joking (I like to see him squirm) but he doesn’t take any chances.
The simple life
Maybe in a past life I was nomadic. Maybe in my old age I will live free of all of the entrapments of modern life. At the moment, I’m just too attached. I have just bought a new coffee machine, so …. maybe one day.
