On the spaciousness of tiny rooms

My apartment in Las Cruces is tiny. One might call this narrow cabin of cinderblock a casita, but it doesn’t have room for three syllables. 

It provides means for preparing food and coffee, for washing and for sleeping. There are also luxuries: A small, built-in bookcase; windows to harvest sunshine in the morning; machines to heat or cool the space. It is positioned near a park, the adobe homes of the Mesquite Historic District and views of the Organ Mountains. It is convenient for some of the loveliest walks in city limits and close to taverns and coffee shops I love, not to mention COAS Books.

There are also reminders that there is darkness and pain in the city of the crosses, including an obvious drug house a few yards away from where I lay my head, where one visitor after another, walking portraits of human misery, knock on a door and leave moments later. There are also many people in need of shelter, who would be comforted by a space just one-third of my cabin’s footprint.  

In the process of moving in I thought of solo retreat cabins one finds at some meditation centers. Hermitages, or retreat cabins, minimize square footage, providing shelter for living in solitude and spending one’s time in prayer or meditation, which has a way of broadening one’s sense of interior space even in a tight physical structure. After all, there is the outdoors for exercise, strolling or simply observing life around us. In contrast, the freedom of working for wages, earning money to fund activities and desires beyond life’s necessities and managing everything we pack into our days can seem confining and even claustrophobic.

Habits that invite rest and clarity and opens perspective can help, and for that a simply appointed, tiny space serves just fine.