Emotional Frugality? I Don't Think So!

There is a poem by Alice Walker that begins:

Expect nothing.
Live frugally on surprise.

I came across it last week in a list of quotes titled "Simple Inspirations." I looked up the poem the quote had been lifted from, to see if it were somehow taken out of context. After reading the poem, which left me sad, I emailed my friend Margo: I am troubled by the statement. It would seem to me that if you expected nothing, then the surprise of something would be even greater.

Needless to say, I did not find the quote inspiring.

Margo emailed back soon afterwards: I'd have to study that statement for a while to decide how I felt. The "live frugally on surprise" troubles me. I'd rather live richly, even if it's only on my own imagination.

Margo is 100% correct.

Don't get me wrong. I love frugality. Fiscal frugality, that is. I practice it as much as possible for lots of reasons, both philosophical (because I believe in it) and practical (my finances have been really tight for a long time). Conspicuous consumption makes me break out in hives.

I think I learned frugality in my cradle from my grandmothers, both of whom raised families during the Great Depression, and whose frugal living styles I saw demonstrated over and over throughout my childhood and adolescence. I am fortunate beyond words that my husband, Warren, is like minded. We were both married for a long time to other individuals who wreaked a lot of financial harm in our respective lives, so we really, really appreciate each other's frugality.

But I don't carry my frugality into my emotional life. Especially not into my emotional life.

One of the rewards of a frugal lifestyle is that it gives me the time and presence of mind to savor Life. Because I am not at the mall looking for a new pair of shoes to lift my spirits or suggesting "oh, let's just eat out!" to give me an emotional boost, I have the energy, both physically and mentally, to focus on the immediate task at hand, be it having coffee with a friend or weeding the garden or taking a walk with Warren.

There is another reason I shun emotional frugality and that is, of course, my one way ticket to Cancerland, handed to me in November, 2004. Getting a diagnosis of cancer, especially an incurable kind, is an automatic, instantaneous, life-changing moment. I learned in a heartbeat that Life - sweet, sad, painful, crazy, uplifting, exasperating, joyous Life - trumped shoes, cars, or meals out any day, anytime, anywhere.

That Life Lesson has never left me. And because I have learned irrevocably that Life is so wonderful, I could never ever live frugally on surprise, expecting nothing.

My riches are counted not in objects or in coins, but in the building blocks of my life: my marriage, my family, my friends, my writing, my volunteer activities, my everyday activities. I am frugal when it comes to spending money, but not when it comes to spending time doing the things that matter to me most, with or for the people who count the most. I am fully in agreement with Zadie Smith: "Time is how you spend your love." Whether I am spending it writing a letter to Katrina, seeing Warren's face light up in a smile, baking for the Legal Clinic, or just sitting on the deck listening to the cardinals, these are my small moments of great reward, not doled out stingily, but filling my heart and my hands, spilling through my fingers - rewards anew each day.