Isalos Fine Art

We just spent a week in house in a subdivision of very similar houses, which lay within an even bigger subdivision containing more of the same. From the air, the place appears maze-like, the streets bending in upon one another, occasionally opening into a cul-de-sac or the baseball diamond of a school. The maze is bisected by a wide, multiple lane avenue, and again by an interstate highway, around which are clustered the large flat roofs of shopping complexes, around which are parked thousands of cars. Jets from the  nearby airport frequently fly over this area after they take off, which is how I was able to see it from this perspective as we left.

Somehow, the aerial view of suburbia doesn’t inspire awe for the beauty of our planet. Rather, it’s hard not to wonder how it got like this and where it’s going. It’s easy to think that the people living in such maze-like surroundings are scurrying around, searching  for cheese at the end of the path... or more to the point, money and then the things that money buys.

That’s what we did while we were there; after all, it was Christmas. We found ourselves elbow to elbow among hordes of shoppers, bedazzled and overwhelmed by stuff. And we wanted it all: the ipods and all the i-accessories, the huge, skinny televisions and the gadgets meant to simplify our lives. We even wanted the books about how to simplify your life. They recommended getting rid of stuff, but all lacked chapters on what to do with your books about getting rid of stuff. Mostly though, we just looked and came home exhausted, nearly convinced that we should make more money so we could buy more of this stuff.

Overheard: “we vacationed at _____, where we would love to live full-time if we didn’t have bills to pay.”

Huh. We often hear visitors to Stonington saying the same thing. We get a lot of questions that seem to be roundabout ways of the questioner imagining themselves in our shoes. Often, they seem to assume that we have some advantage that they don’t: some stockpile of money that enables us to live where we want. We don’t have that stockpile of money, but we try to have an absence of those bills and debts to pay.  After all: if you don’t spend money, you don’t have to earn it.

Our sojourn in shopping-land coincided with our increased perception that we needed to buy a new car. I say “perception”, but it is quickly becoming a tangible need. We start off thinking we’ll spend the money we’ve saved to buy something maybe five years old, but we discover that those used cars hold their value pretty well, and the price isn’t so much lower than an almost new car. And gosh, why buy that almost new car when there’s brand-new economy cars for less than fifteen-grand? But hey- if you’re gonna spend fifteen grand, you’re getting a loan anyway, and what’s a couple more thousand to get the car you really want? By now we’ve resolved to spend our savings, plus three-hundred dollars a month for the next four or five years. And gosh, if you’re making that  commitment, why not check-out those cool mid-size SUVs in the low to mid twenties?

Next Blog: We Visit Car Dealers 

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