Living Life by the Square Inch

I dream in inches. Eight more inches and I could open my bedroom door all the way. Six more inches up and another layer of bookcase will fit. And, oh please, I breathe, just 4 extra inches tall would open up a whole world of storage under the bed. Clearly, these are waking dreams. Daydreams, really.

My life is compressed into 154 square feet — the space provided by a room measuring 11 feet by 14 feet. This is fairly generous by older American apartment standards. And to be fair, this is just my bedroom. I share a two bedroom apartment with my two grown children. One has a bedroom, the other has claim to the living room. We make it work.

We aren’t alone in this living style. Many cultures share living space with multiple generations as a matter of course, and according to the Pew Research Center, 64 million Americans were just like us in 2018. That number has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic as families take in displaced members.

Moving back home during the current crisis isn’t just an American thing, even if our ideas about how much space we need to accommodate people are different than a large swath of the rest of the planet.

11 average Chinese houses will fit into just one average American house. Source: Elle Décor

154 square feet is 22,176 square inches. For a bedroom that is more than enough space for one person, almost everywhere, and is palatial in some places. This knowledge is both a source of comfort and anguish to me.

I am lucky to have this space. I am grateful that I am not worried about being evicted from this space, unlike many millions of Americans who still don’t know how they’re going to pay the rent. The thing is, some of the way I pay my rent is by making and selling things. Lots of things.

I am surrounded by shelves stuffed full of yarn, felt, leather, and fabric. Paint, glue, tools, findings, hardware, thread, clay, wood, bins, and beads. Boxes of finished inventory waiting for their forever homes. This is a bedroom, a craft boutique, an art studio, an office, and a stockroom. It is a hoarder’s paradise. It makes me happy and sometimes it makes me cry into the wee hours.

I could give this all up and focus just on my writing. I could open up space in this room or I could be a digital nomad. A tiny house dweller. An adopter of the newest trend for living lightly on the land. But making things makes me happy and I can’t give that up just yet.

I also can’t yet give up the dream of moving into a space of my own. I shouldn’t need a whole house to myself, but I want one. Detached, cozy, whole, with a piece of land surrounding it, running over with flowers and chickens.

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ― Virginia Woolf

I should be grateful that my mind is free. Free to write whatever I want. Free to make whatever I want. Within the limits of my space, that is. There are no handcrafted credenzas in my near future. But, I am free to dream about them and my far future.

This is not where I thought I would be at this point in my life. This is not where the society I was born into expected women in their 50s to be. That’s mostly okay. Society’s expectations have rarely, if ever, favored women. Times change, and I’m still young enough to believe I have a future ahead of me that will be better than the past.

I also believe that about the planet. Most days. I believe in a future that embraces more sustainability in our societies, our economies, and our lives. A 2020 paper on the future of sustainability addressed the size of our living spaces and what a livable future might demand. The paper’s author, Maurie Cohen, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, noted:

“There is no question that if we are serious about embracing our expressed commitments to sustainability, we will in the future need to live more densely and wisely.”

He believes that 215 square feet is the maximum amount of space a single person needs in a sustainable society, and a family of four should keep their living space under 860 square feet. My kids and I are exceeding sustainability, but I still feel cramped and sad. And very guilty.

The tiny house movement is big. People are happily and voluntarily downsizing. Zoning regulations and building codes are slowly coming around. There are also people who would very much like to stop sleeping in their cars and on the streets, and move into a tiny home, at the least. I need to adjust my dreams. This isn’t easy.

At an early point in my life I wanted to be an astronaut. I likely shared this dream with millions of other kids with earliest memories of Neil Armstrong bounding on the moon. As I grew up I brought my dreams back down to earth. Their home now is 154 square feet, but on their horizon is a small cottage on a pastoral piece of landscape. Hopefully.

I spend Sundays browsing house listings online, but not just any listings. I want the ones with 3D tours. I want to control the walkthrough with my mouse, to peek into every nook, and imagine how I will line up jars in the pantry and where the coats will hang. I want to look out the windows at vegetable beds, wandering chickens, and trees I can climb. Yes, even at my age. I love technology’s ability to immerse me in what I can’t afford. Can’t have.

I feel a little pathetic and I hate the feeling. Time to bury it in work. Work, and more work, seemingly endless, keeps the dream alive. Keeps hope fluttering in my heart. I am not too old to dream new dreams. To dream of just a few more sustainable inches here and there.