Earth Day is a single day per year, April 22nd. But, when you stop to consider that we celebrate our only home in the universe just once per year, it seems strange that we choose a single day.
A single day is not enough to remember our stewardship of this Earth, to inspire action to care for our environment, and to recognize our part in the grand ecosystem.
To fulfill Earth Day’s promise, we must embrace the every day opportunities to give thanks, to make amends, to make progress. Each and every day, we must remind ourselves to live in gratitude with the Earth, until it just becomes automatic, until we no longer have to remember because we could never forget.
As a business, as a family, as members of a community, we find ourselves pondering challenging questions about our impact in this world — questions without easy answers, questions whose solutions cannot be purchased, questions that cannot be answered in a single day.
One such question that we ask ourselves is: what is our enough?
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is, in many ways, a meditation on what is enough. Thoreau “went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts.” In a word, he wished to simplify — to strip away the excess from his life, to embrace the magnificent stillness of the breaking dawn, to reconnect to the myriad rhythms of nature.
In our fast-moving world, we seldom ask ourselves what is essential. We inundate our minds with data, we push for continued and uninterrupted growth, we accumulate more and more.
But this endless pursuit of more is not healthy — for us or for the environment we grace. And so, we again ask: what is enough?
As parents, “enough” does not mean just the bare necessities for survival. For us, “enough” includes the family dinner around a gathered table with a delicious meal. For us, “enough” means getting outside to play, to explore, to swim, to climb a tree. “Enough” is snuggling together, sharing love and warmth and laughter. “Enough” is reading a treasured book.
“Enough” is the good stuff of life — that which adds significant value to our every day. The excess is that which distracts us from all that is wholesome and lovely and joyous.
As a brand, “enough” is a tricky concept. We engage with our customers through transactions (that is, the act of purchasing a piece of our merino), but we hope that this relationship never feels transactional…for you or for us!
Chasing Windmills is a deeply personal mission for us. We are a literal mom-and-pop brand, a two-person company that lives, breathes, and touches merino every single day.
We are the dreamers, the content creators, the order fulfillers, and the every-thing-in-between-ers. Our kids wear merino every single day, to school, to bed, to ski, to hike, and to just be.
There is not a day that goes by in which we don’t spend some of our waking hours (and sometimes dreaming hours) on Chasing Windmills. And at our core, what drives us, is the chance to spread the joy of “enough” to you and your family. To offer clothing that is simple and adaptive and just allows you and yours to explore this beautiful world.
And so, on this Earth Day, we pledge to hold onto this question, as parents and a business. And, hopefully, to inspire others to consider their “enough” too.