Very early Sunday morning. Walden. Divestment.

Catching up on other folks' blogs overnight.  It's becoming a morning ritual, and I'm slowly beginning to feel connected to people out there who share this interest, whatever it is. Howdy, y'all!

Ramblings over coffee:

Simplicity.  "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." This is a classic line from Henry David Thoreau, whose Walden is one of those books everyone used to read in high school.  I did.  This impulse seems to be a constant in the American experience: The real world becomes too much to bear; too noisy; too crowded; too much.  And so we leave it behind.   Thoreau spent two years in his cabin in the woods, and then returned to his regular haunts. He wrote a book, started another, and listened to the loons.  

As I've said before, I don't fully share this impulse to divestment.  Us loves our things.  But as I look back on the last decade or so of my life, it's been in the direction of less, not more.  I retired, and left behind all the busy-ness of a professional life.  My marriage ended, and all the connections and negotiations and pleasures and annoyances of sharing a life faded. I moved from a big ol' sprawling house to a smaller townhome.  At each step, I've left stuff and people behind.  "Less stuff, more freedom" is the motto of a YouTube vlogger called "Happily Houseless." I even bought one of his stickers as a gesture of support to a fellow Tucsonan. (Ironically, more stuff!)

Considering a DeLorme communicator.  Emergency contact, sure.  I think about that.  Mostly, to be honest, because it seems like a cool gadget.  So does my new solar panel.  So, for that matter, is the whole damn RV.

I've been avidly watching some YouTube series in which an RV of some sort -- a van, a trailer, a motorhome -- is torn down and rebuilt. These give me confidence.  They de-mystify the Beast... and I realize that if the dreaded dry rot should show up, I could figure out what to do.  That this is something that can be taken apart and put back together, not a big monolithic Thing which I have to accept on its terms.  I just had a tiny example of that: replacing the vent lid which went AWOL.  It may or may not show in the video clip, but I was absurdly pleased with myself over that simple task.

I have the good fortune to be able to maintain my "sticks and (adobe) bricks" residence at the same time I hit the road. Will there come a time to fully divest?  To cut the cord, sell the house, and become a full-timer? Dunno.  I doubt it, but never say never. Only time on the road will tell me.

Walt Whitman:

Up and down the roads going— 

North and South excursions making,

Power enjoying—elbows stretching—fingers clutching,

Armed and fearless—eating, drinking, sleeping, loving...

Fulfilling our foray.

Time for more forays.
Time for more coffee.

R