Of Human Vagabondage

We’ll be spending tonight in the fourth different bed in six nights. We’re dog sitting at a classic mid-century Palm Springs home.

It’s very geometric and one rectangle leads to the next, but I always feel like each is incomplete in itself or somehow is itself plus a half.

            In looking over the photos I took, I realized what must already seem to many of you as an obvious metaphor. I am feeling fractured in the places were staying as much as the places were staying feel fractured to me.

            A lot of people asked about or commented on us giving up a permanent residence. We knew we wanted to travel and the idea of paying rent somewhere when we knew we didn’t want to settle down for a while made sense. But the reality is new. I always say there is a difference between knowing and experiencing. Death I think is the great example. We all know everyone will die, yet we grieve massively when it actually happens. I knew not having a permanent residence would feel new. But now I know what “new” amounts to. I’m not sure I can articulate it. Like my previous phrase in reverse: experience is not always knowing. Everything feels very transitory, though we know where we will be sleeping each night during this phase.

            And, as I have said, I am aware that we get to stay in nice places on the spectrum of places people with no permanent residence get to stay. Meanwhile, my head will try to find a sense of “home” not tied to “house” that we can tote from place to place.