Not long after graduating college, I spent a time living in a secluded house on a ridge point, surrounded on all sides by the forests of Wirt County. Bath and wash water came from rain on the roof, funneled by the gutters into a basement cistern. Heat for summer cooking came from a hot plate or grill, and heat for the house in winter came from the wood stove.

Viable work was clear in Parkersburg, over an hour away. But, there was a recent saw mill site over the next hill, and I homeschooled students for income. I could pay my electric, rent and groceries. Water from the cistern and heat from the saw mill left-overs were free.

Once a month, I traveled to town for food and to do laundry, and for the rest of the year, I stayed in that house on the hill, for I could afford little else.

That year includes some of the most profound, the most relaxed, the most enlightening moments of my life.

It was hard labor splitting and carrying wood and water, and it was hard living, especially for a city girl. But at the end of the day, I would sit, dead tired on the back porch, and watch the sun set from my perch on top of the mountain.

Once settled into the house, my daily routine began to include creative writing (with pen and paper), gardening, carrying water and wood, walking the dogs and - watching the sun set. In other words, my adult life had never before - or has ever since - been simpler.

It is incredibly difficult to live so simply in this world, and the limited period when I was able to do so (and survive it) now seems to be nothing but a fleeting collection of memories of when my only purpose each day was my own.

Time was fluid, but thick like molasses and slow as ketchup. I told time by the position of the sun in the sky, by the passing of the school busses on the roads far below me. On top of the mountain, the night sky surrounds you, and the rest of the world just fades away...

Then a job opportunity came, and I gladly and thankfully took it. I became a functioning citizen of the world again, and at the time, was happy to do so. But now, some thirteen years later, think back of those days when I tended gardens in the morning, wrote stories and taught in the heat of the day, carried wood and walked dogs in the evenings, and closed each day with the sunset.

Our lives in this modern world are so complicated. It’s as though we are trained and drained by the things that are meant to make our lives easier. While I may sit and wish I could go back to that mountain, I know that the way for me to get back to the frame of mind (what I’m really longing for) is to give up the items I don’t really need in life, and simplify.

We’re all being squeezed by economic conditions, we’re all running in a reactive mode simply answering to the demands for our attention. We’re all scrambling, in one way or another, to regain some sense of peace, of control, to get to a point where we are "at rest." But if our lives are complicated, how can we ever be at rest?

Since Frank and I left the house on the mountain, we’ve worked to be that settled again, that organized again, that "simplified" again. In thirteen years, we still haven’t accomplished it. These days, I need my cell phone. I need my computer and my Internet, and my make-up and my specialty teas and flavored creamer. Alas, thirteen years of modern living has ruined me. My life is no longer simple.

Since I can no longer master the simple life, I have chosen a different goal -- a practical life. I’ve been working to become a more practical person. This approach is helping purge our home of unnecessary items we have become slaves to. Cleaning out closets and storage and kitchen drawers becomes much easier when you ask:

"Is it useful?" and "Is it worth the time/expense needed to take care of it?"

While all this might seem too basic to improve our lives, we have found that as we "purge" out the unnecessaries of our lives, we slowly, but surely, begin to relax, and appreciate the items we’ve chosen to keep. We have the time to take care of what we have, and more time to take care of ourselves and each other.

A simple life is a practical life, and it’s obviously practical to work towards a life that isn’t burdened by unnecessary things. In a culture where we are typically defined by what we have and what we live with, I have learned that often, it is easier to live without.

I hope readers enjoy the practical information our columnists offer in Two-Lane Livin’. We believe our magazine is something that no one should live without.