Dear World: The Kind of Hell You Choose Will Always Determine the Kind of Freedom You Have

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

You can’t eat too much fried food.

Your brand-new washer won’t stop filling with water.

The stove won’t heat above 100°.

The pipes are froze.

The floor is caving.

The tire is flat.

So much heartburn.

Heating a house is why people say, “you wouldn’t want to heat that house.”

They are the same people who say things like, “you wouldn’t want to clean this house.”

(They are right.)

(They are also rich. What poor person says that? NO POOR PEOPLE SAY THAT.)

Did you know that when I got here and bought this crazy old farmhouse, everyone was like, “LEAVING THE HEAT ON IS MORE EFFICIENT THAN TURNING IT OFF AND TURNING IT BACK ON AGAIN,” and that is…………..fucking wrong?

Electric baseboard heaters are also for rich people. (Apparently.) You can’t leave these things on. You gotta have a method. That method is: FREEZE WHILE RUNNING TO THE BATHROOM NAKED AT 1AM BECAUSE YOU ONLY HEAT THE ROOM YOU’RE IN.

You ever pee at 1AM? That’s my time. Sometimes 1:05. Sometimes 1:28, but that’s only when there’s been margaritas.

Everyone around here has an “outdoor wood stove.” For the uninitiated, this is a giant steel box you put in the yard that you then stare at for weeks on end while still using the electric baseboard heat because the whole “outdoor wood stove” thing means performing the very act of “going outdoors.” Can you imagine me going out there at 1:28am??? Cue a squatty, 5’3” woman in an oversized blue puffer jacket that doesn’t actually close because her boobs are too big and her waist too wide, painstakingly heaving one piece of wood at a time into this giant, fiery steel box in the woods, twice a day, to keep the fire going, and the heat on. What?????? When would this ever be a good idea??? This is the kind of thing that requires serious, pro-level commitment. I’d rather have a dog (which is saying a lot). At least you can put them on an airplane. Or, into a giant fiery box in the woods, if things get out of control.

I sometimes think about the ripple effect of something like having a giant, fiery steel box in the woods you must fill with wood twice a day, lest the heat go off, because the giant, fiery steel box in the woods also is responsible for heating other things, too (like the water).

This is the decision of someone firmly planted. Someone who does not easily traipse. Going anywhere for any length of time, even to visit your sister in Saratoga Springs, must be taxing: for who is going to load the wood stove?????

This, right here, is where this heat source loses its legs for me. Do I need to train someone? Know someone? Be nice to people???????? I can’t even ask anyone to water my plants without feeling like A World-Class Needy Person, let alone a task of this scale “By the way, Jenny, if ya wouldn’t mind hoisting a few logs onto your shoulder in negative six degree temps and risk sudden death on this icy here hill? I’d be mighty grateful.”

So many of the decisions I make are still rooted in my forever identity as a traveler. Can’t shake it. Don’t wanna. That is who I am. I might be here in this house, right now, because I might have an interior design obsession, and I might like learning new things (like saws!), and I might have thought this was a very exciting idea. But I will never give up my virtual mailbox at Earth Class Mail. 🤷‍♀️

The outdoor wood stove just says so much, doesn’t it? It means: I am strong. I am dedicated. I am trustworthy. But it also means: I am here. And, I’ve still got a complicated relationship with that word.

Here.

Like a permanent tattoo on a map.

THAT SAID, you know what the joy is of these things??? If you’re someone in the woods and you have one of these things, you know what else you probably have?

Woods.

That you can literally cut down. And use. To put into. The giant fiery box.

And that means: free heat!

Ah, the real benefit of this intensive labor boot camp of joy.

Isn’t it fascinating, the things we do based on what we value most?

Do you value self-sufficiency, and the idea that hard work produces fine results?
Or, do you value self-autonomy, and the idea that hard work produces freedom?

The kind of hell you choose will always determine the kind of freedom you have. But, that only matters if you value freedom.

This is not everyone’s priority.

For me, however, while it might cost me less money to have an outdoor wood stove, it will cost me far more in other ways. Ways that would personally cost me the world—literally.

Fortunately, we all get to pick.

You want a new outcome? You simply make a new decision. Every decision you make changes the way you spend your life.

NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING.

So for now I’ll be over here with my baseboard heaters, these expensive little pricks, knowing that I am not actually paying for electricity.

I’m paying for freedom.

…and hell of a lot of heartburn meds.