Back from the Mountains, Our Return to NYC

After nearly four months of camper adventures and outdoor shenanigans, we decided it was time to return to the city.

The COVID rates in New York had dropped dramatically. Offices and retail stores were opening again. Restaurants had outdoor dining, even if you still couldn’t go inside. So we headed home to Manhattan with a new take on life.

The time in West Virginia had forever changed our little family, and we planned to apply many of the things we learned while we were there at home. These were things we had been trying to do before, but not in the same pure form as we experienced them in West Virginia. Our short list of new things to do in included:

• Celebrate Life: Acknowledge and appreciate all the great things that happen in our lives—birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, milestones, successes, and more. Find a way to celebrate these moments, so the memories and feelings are sealed in our hearts and minds.
• Work With What We Have: Don’t try to buy happiness or solutions. Amazon doesn’t have the answer for everything. A new house or car won’t make our problems go away. Learn to look first within our own resources. “Make it Work,” as Tim Gunn would say.
• Make Time for People: There is never enough time to do everything. Work and chores will always demand more from us. Place a priority on spending time with friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. They make our lives so much richer.
• Simplify: How were five shirts and a pair of shoes good enough for West Virginia? We each had a half-filled set of drawers in our camper, and seemed to get along just fine. Back in New York, we fight through closets filled with clothes each morning just to find a shirt we want to wear. Less is more would be a good mantra for us to remember.
• Slow Down And Enjoy What’s Around Us:  We made the most of everything around us in West Virginia. We played in the creek, we swam in the river, we hiked the trails. We even savored the cheap pizza from the gas station. There wasn’t a restaurant of any kind within 20 miles of our camper. We wanted to return to New York City with this same attitude. We lived in a place that millions visit each year. How can we appreciate it more each day, each weekend, each year?

We realize these are not novel ideas. We’re not the first to try to change our approach to life.

As simple as these concepts may sound, we also know we’ll fall short many times. When you see our closets and storage units, you’ll see what we mean. Simplify is not the first word that will come to mind.

We hope sharing our efforts to realign our priorities in life will help others too. Follow along, and keep us honest. We are open to ideas on how to make this work.