I was thinking late last night and it became clear to me that over the past 9 or 10 years, I had fallen into a nomadic outlook, even when I wasn't being particularly nomadic in my way of life all the time. Between moving around the Bay Area 1.5 times a year, shipping everything cross-country by UPS, hauling all my worldly goods back in a pickup, and then falling into a longterm already-established-but-clearly-not-permanent place at the farm, dashing off to places like Honduras and Brazil for months at a time, and going around with a camper, I experienced the kind of pressure that selects for keeping posessions limited, appreciating things that pack a lot of different uses into a small space (like a laptop with gigs and gigs of carefully organised information). The things I aquired, valued, and kept were either very portable and useful -- tools, laptop, tents, vehicles, cookware -- or portable and luxurious -- comforters, good sheets, a rug. (I had my pick of nearly anything in my Grandmother's house, and I chose a rug.) The real luxury items were put up with only grudgingly and spent a lot of time in storage. Mostly books, and this is why unlike most people, I prefer my books on the computer. For lots of other categories of stuff, I tended to assume that I wasn't going to keep it long, and bought/borrowed accordingly -- and ended up giving away couches on Craigslist. Recently I saw some stuff about Mongolian nomads in the Gobi packing their yurts onto their camels, and I can relate to that, there's a real beauty to it.

So it's been weird over the past week to put together all the large furniture that I need in my house, like a fridge, etc. A bit hard to accept it. Only with time will I find out how long this stop along the way will last..