In search of simplicity

And how to show a father's love

Photo by Michael Chupik on Unsplash

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a Quaker meeting when two opposing thoughts began jostling together. 

Anyone who knows me well will be surprised to hear that I ventured anywhere near a religious service. And, truth be told, I was a little surprised to find myself there, too. I’m not a Quaker (yet). If I’m anything, I’m a humanist. But I know I need more community in my life, so I’ve been pushing myself out of isolation, hoping to find ways to reciprocate the support I’ve found. 

This Friends meeting runs in the traditional Pennsylvania style, with an hour of silence. The group meets outdoors when the weather permits, and I was sitting in the shade of a mature honey locust tree when the first thought arrived. 

It came in the form of a breeze. After weeks of hot and humid weather, that morning was perfect for sitting outdoors. 70 degrees, not too sticky, not too windy. As I sat there studying the ground, glad to see a little clover and plantain mixed in with the grass, I felt the breeze against my face and considered how well it expressed the Quaker tenet of simplicity. The best things in my life have come like that breeze, unbidden and free. You can buy a view, I guess, or enough acres to keep it quiet when you sleep. But you can’t purchase friends or love or a cool wind that foretells the fall. So I accepted that gift gratefully. 

But the next thought that crowded in was of things that are for sale, but that masquerade as gifts. I thought of Hershey Park, where we took my eldest for her birthday. It’s a giant amusement complex that charges an exorbitant amount for entry and then, once you’ve discovered that the wait for most rides is 45 minutes, an additional $100 a head for a “fast pass,” which ostensibly allows you to jump the line, which you want to do because it’s your daughter’s birthday, until you discover that even then you’ll be waiting 15 minutes or more for your fun. 

I really wanted my daughter to have a great birthday, and I think she did. But the rides only lasted a minute or two, and so the bulk of the day was spent distracting ourselves from the fact that we weren’t having fun, but were instead hot and sticky and bored, even in the fast track lane. At the end of the day, the path back to parking led through two retail spaces packed with all things Hershey, including a booth where we custom-built our own plate-sized Reese’s cup and carried it away in a cardboard box. Like the bait-and-switch of the rides, that outsized dessert ended up being too sweet for anyone’s liking, and so it lurked in the fridge for a week until it ended up in the trash. 

Not everyone gets to spend a day at Hershey Park, and that is the point. It’s not a skiing vacation at Vail or Aspen, but it’s a stretch for many families. It’s not just the entry fee — nearly everything inside the gates is monetized and optimized to attract little eyes that want what they see. And so much of the day is also a constant negotiation of how many of those micro-purchases to approve. For a family of five, that means hundreds of dollars in the span of six or eight hours. It could not be more opposite to the idea of a Quaker life built on quiet, meditation, and simplicity. 

I think of other days I’ve spent with my children that felt more like that breeze. Skating across a frozen lake at a state park after the snow had blown off — a half mile or more of ice open to anyone. Swimming in Montana rivers, where — if you don’t mind a bit of a hike or the company of strangers — you can find dozens of natural pools fit for kings. Even a card game at a picnic table has that feeling of ritual simplicity. No lines or price gouging. No outsized pleasures, either. But the riffle of the deck, the rhythm of the deal, and the game that is more about time together than who wins or loses, is another one of those simple gifts.

Simplicity is easier to choose in mid-life. I’ve tried many things that glitter and found them wanting. So I drift back to my roots — to gardens and forests and books. Yet I know that the adult’s simplicity is often felt by the child as scarcity. I’d like to share simplicity with my children, so it’s waiting in their earliest sense memories when they need to reach for an anchor. But I don’t want them to feel that portions of the world are closed off for reasons they can’t understand. 

This conundrum draws me back to my grandfathers.

My Grandpa Rupert grew up comfortably in Seattle. His father taught German at the University of Washington, and his uncle founded a Swedish hospital that still stands. But he left all that to work as a ranch hand in Idaho and, later, as a forester in Montana. These were all good choices for him, and they meshed with his own ethic of simplicity as a Pentecostal Christian, but they seriously limited the horizons for his five children. Simplicity in his house often felt more like nay than yea. Carob chips in place of chocolate makes a cruel hoax of a cookie. I was often more aware, while visiting my mother’s parents, of what I ought not to do and say.

My Grandpa Herman lived a simple life in his own way, but he said yes to many more things. My memories of him include packs of Hubba Bubba bubble gum, cheeseburgers after Little League games, and Kit Kat bars while ice fishing. We watched baseball and college football together, hunted elk, and chased grouse along ridgetops in the Yaak Valley. It wasn’t just my grandfather’s treats and permissiveness that made me feel close to him. It was a sense that he accepted me, was proud of me, and genuinely wanted to spend the day in my company. Yet he was often happy with very little. Based on the stories told at his funeral, many of his friends still ritualize their memory of him in the simplest way — by adding a slice of white onion to their sandwiches, as he loved to do.

I recognize that my aversion to amusement parks springs more from nay than from yea. And I know that simplicity defined by nay is just another name for scarcity and disapproval. At the same time, I don’t want my children to grow up thinking that they must work, work, work to pay for an experience that takes more from them than it gives. The not-so-hidden curriculum of amusement parks is “more is more.” Take that lesson to heart, and you’re running a hamster wheel of acquisition. This is why, according to the economist Daniel Hamermesh, U.S. workers forego more vacation time than workers in any other industrialized country — they want to earn more to purchase all the things that corporate advertising has conditioned them to want. Europeans, by contrast, are happier with fewer material things and more leisure time. So how does a father with a more European sensibility guide his children toward simplicity without saying nay to American consumerism? Without swapping the chocolate chips for the carob?

Emily Dickinson, whose life was spartan enough, wrote that she dwelt in Possibility, not in Parsimony. 

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

That is the riddle I’m still trying to unlock as a father. Because there is no doubt in my mind that skating across the mirror of a frozen lake with the Gambrels of the Sky above is a greater gift, a richer yea, than a fortress of concrete where every fleeting thrill costs another 5, 10, 20 dollars.

But I think what my Grandpa Herman would say — what he taught me without needing to say it out loud — is that love is one form that simplicity takes, and you can communicate it in all kinds of ways. It’s more a question of emphasis than exclusion. Keep all the avenues open, but nudge the wheel toward simplicity as often as possible.

Let the lake and the forest and the garden cucumbers speak for themselves.