The Internal Nomad

Photo courtesy Flickr

Today’s forecast is for sun and the high fifties. After four months in the study, the walls are closing in, and I look forward to setting up on the sunporch to thrash paper this afternoon. A laptop, WiFi, and cell phone float an office the way the Walkman originally floated personal music.

Futurist Buckminster Fuller taught that the first question one should ask about a thing was, “How much does it weigh?” Eighteenth-century furniture was designed to be portable, to take advantage of natural light. The French and Italian words for furniture translate as “movables”.

This 1890 house is perfectly sited for passive solar gain, with the long axis of the roof running east to west. I doubt that this is accidental. Originally, the place was heated with a fireplace, kitchen stove, and a couple of gas fires in the upper chambers. It’s designed so that the doors valve heat here and there as it is desired.

I learned early on to set up activities wherever was most pleasant, using available heat and natural light rather than central utilities. Field experience, living without electricity for a year, and some privileged senior housekeepers had taught me that free energy is the most congenial. A house cat is a reliable guide to microclimates.

In the nineteenth century, coal, kerosene, and cotton waste from the weaving industry produced the interior dominated by dormant furniture, huge, heavy upholstered pieces that never moved from their final position. Space will work a lot harder if most of the furnishings are light enough to move safely. The smaller the interior, the more valuable it is to choose pieces that are more brain and muscle than mass.

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The Winter So Far

Photo courtesy Flickr

The little whispers of spring that started right after Christmas have become a soft hum. I’ve had time to consider what’s worked and what hasn’t about leaving the heat off unless the pipes threaten to freeze.

This is the second winter I’ve tried this. Last year my oil bill was half that of the previous one, making the total one-quarter of the bill thirty years ago. We restored the wood and glass storm windows and insulated one room, but made no other capital improvements.

It may be that global warming lowers the heat bill as well as any other factor. Vancouver’s soggy snow threatens to embarrass the Winter Olympics this week, and I take an odd comfort in thinking that the rate of increase has accelerated exponentially since B.C. was awarded the games, so no one might be to blame for choosing that venue.

The three by five foot electric mat that slips under the rug in the small parlor where the two of us sit, study, and take our meals has kept us comfortable on all but the most bitter winter days. Only four or five times has it been necessary to supplement the mat with an oil-filled portable radiator. Concentrating sedentary activities on one room feels convenient rather than deprived.

The room is noticeably warmer when my large partner is in it.

Physical fitness is the key to thriving with economies in heat. A week of sitting in a conference chair and train seat leaves me craving heat like a reptile. A regular routine of bus and foot travel, visits to the gym, and intervals of standing work mixed with sedentary keeps me alert enough to respond to shifts in body heat. One has to keep the initiative to stay warm. A cold nose tells when it’s time to add a layer.

Context is everything. I was in San Francisco recently and gasped at an open window next to a hissing radiator. After a few days, I felt chilled when clouds covered the sun. Long ago, a Puerto Rican hostess told me none of her neighbors used the beach in the winter, when it was sixty degrees.

Several pieces of clothing have saved gallons of oil over the last few months: a knit fur beret from a major English label, a gauzy wool scarf from India, and a simple pair of heavy wool hiking socks. Sleeping in the scarf is as comfortable as sleeping in a heated room. A hot water bottle would be a good idea at bedtime, but I haven’t gotten around to using one. A wool sheet blanket adds a good ten degrees of comfort to an unheated room.

Can’t say enough good things about wool this winter.

Living with the heat off is for volunteers. It might be risky for someone who is not fit and doing sedentary work to choose a chilly environment. Hypothermia can dull judgement and hobble the ability to recognize chill and take an active measure against it. That said, two years ago I decided that I wasn’t willing to be so fragile that I had to live in a terrarium. I couldn’t be happier to be mining my utility bills for capital and to know that the sea is just a little bit freer of mercury for my not having burned gallons of oil.

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The Traditional Garden

Photo courtesy Flickr

A graduate student in landscaping told me about a classic English garden practice: to leave the dead stalks of perennials in place over the winter. They house welcome predators and break the wind around tender new shoots in early spring.

I have grown very fond of the subtle color and gentle lines of dead yarrow, dock, and oregano stems. They meander along the front walk, and I can look at them every time I use the main door. Last summer’s blooms look like delicate metal scrap by February, and it’s nearly time to mow them flat in anticipation of green-up.

Last night I wanted some oregano and wandered into the mushy Seattle landscape in search of the flavor of a hot, dry Greek island. Oregano there was, to my surprise, tiny flat rosettes almost like mushrooms crouching tightly at the base of a miniature forest of stalks. It was easy to pinch off enough to season the gumbo, and I was grateful not to have to run to the store. I was even more grateful to have guessed right about what was growing and how it had been protected from recent freezes.

I don’t water this part of the garden: it is composed of native plants, tough herbs, and a small area of turf that grows thicker and more resilient each season. I believe not irrigating produces tough stems that weather beautifully rather than collapsing into a soggy mass after the first storm in October. This is another in a long line of examples of how acting to protect the environment, in this case by conserving water, brings unexpected benefits-attractive winter foliage and a fresh herb-and saves labor and cash.

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Sky Miser Two

Photo courtesy Flickr

What is luxury now that every gram of carbon counts?

Luxury is merchandise that costs the least per use. Pay the most for what you use the most.

Luxury is a careful attention to the basics.

Luxury is informed physical training.

Luxury is sustainability.

Luxury is good information and good music.

Luxury is the peace of mind that comes from accepting a new problem.

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More after the jump.