Hi! We’re new around here. Let’s explain:
Bien équipé started as a joke and became the corner stone of our life philosophy.
I have a sleeping bag of a winter coat. Crown-to-ankles, puffy, shapeless; it is super ugly. I come from California, and I learned through four Chicago winters how little looking cute meant against feels-like-negative-thirty wind chill. When I brought it out of storage for our move from LA to Montreal, RL tried to ruffle my down. “But,” I said, “I’m bien équipée.” I was un-ruffle-able.
We took next to nothing in the move. It helped that we kept the apartment, and therefore didn’t have to part with beloveds; Marie Kondo would be so disappointed. 90% of it is mine. When we met, RL had been living out of a backpack all over the northern hemisphere, and I had spent a decade funneling all my creative energy into indiscriminately acquiring things. In the process of moving to a new country, and as newlyweds to boot, we’ve learned to meet in the middle. I’ve whittled away the vestigial objects to consecrate the transition from me to we (and to make the apartment airbnb-able, lol). RL has learned the value of comfort and the pride of building a home. Both of us have become mindful of utility, which has led us to be able to better appreciate beauty.
Bien équipé doesn’t mean you have stuff. It means you have the best stuff for the occasion, the right tools, and (this is important) nothing more.
We found the sentiment expanding past our home and our possessions. Bien équipé evolved into the curating of emotions and reactions, and attractions and revulsions. Bien équipé is a system of ethics by which we balance our desires and our needs, and a code of aesthetics by which we enhance our satisfactions and diminish our lack. We have so many shared lists in the notes app, it borders on mania.
We are not minimalists, we are not epicures. We’re trying to maximize the benefits of both while suffering the trappings of neither. We are trying to live and travel comfortably and efficiently, and we would like to share.
We hope you enjoy!
