There and Back Again

Well, after three days and nights in the tent, I moved back into my room in Raleigh's house. Scientists will tell you that there is no such thing as a failed experiment, that even if you don't get the results you were expecting, you're bound to learn something from the process. So, while this particular experiment in alternative living situations didn't pan out as I had initially expected, it did, nonetheless, bring some very positive results.

Namely, it forced me to get rid of all but the essentials. No more shelves of CD's, no more boxes of books (ok, so I've still got a couple boxes of books kicking around, but that's just until I can get them down to Goodwill), no more drawers full of clothes necessitating a dresser. Just the basics. I'd been wanting to do this for some time, but for whatever reason, just couldn't seem to really get started.

The thought that it was time for a "selection of items" and the jettisoning of everything else, first occured to me a couple of weeks before my birthday. I kept meaning to do it, but like I said, I didn't know where to start or what to do with all the accumulated junk. Then I found the campsite while out wandering around in the Rattlesnake, and the thought came to me, "I have to live here", and came with such force that there really was no point in trying to ignore it. Nor did I want to ignore it, because as soon as the desicion was made, it felt like the rightest thing in the world. I tried to wrap some intellectual reasons around why I needed to move into a tent, but that was just because when people asked for an explanation, I couldn't bring myself to say "because my Soul tells me to." Some residual fear of having people think I'm crazy, I guess.

It felt great, and completely right, moving all the stuff out of my room, removing the sediment of a consumer lifestyle, seeing my outward life getting stripped away. And then, after all had been removed, I looked at the room and thought, "You know, this wouldn't be a bad place to live, now. It's kind of nice."

After two nights in the tent and realizing that getting to Raleigh's early enough to take a shower before work (a definite must, as the preceding nights ride UP to the campsite inevitabley left me sweat-soaked) required me to leave the tent well before the sun came up, and that stumbling around in the woods in total darkness looking for my food bag was just not going to work, I knew that I would in fact be living in that nice room that I had just emptied of debris.

Fortunately, the guy who was scheduled to move into my room ended up housesitting for his father instead. The Lord, as they say, works in mysterious and mundane ways.

Jaya Hos!

So, I live in Korea now...