Getting What You Need, Learning What You Want

I have, in my opinion, a nice, cozy little apartment. It has light and color and a bedroom and two bathrooms--one for me and one for the cat. And yes, it allows cats.

I've lived in it for a year now, if you ignore the months that I was in SE Asia, and it is just about the way that I want it.

Except I want it to be a house.

Not a big one, mind you--it could be the exact, same size, in the exact same neighborhood-- I'm not yearning for an upscale living experience. All I want is nobody above me, beside me, or below me--or sharing an entrance or hallway with me. It could be an old railway car or a shipping container with windows cut into it. It could be an abandoned jet plane  or a geodesic dome--I'm not fussy.

Light and Silence is the name of my next book--it's also the minimum daily requirement of my life. I have CDs that I rarely listen to, an iPod that I only use when I travel, Edith Piaf downloaded on my iPad that I've listened to once. It would be easy for me to become a Trappist monk, just so long  as I could see the sky,

Almost every day I go to Craigslist and look at little houses that I could afford to rent. None of them are in the area where I live now. And it occurs to me that in addition to my basic requirements, I need creative, eccentric, delightful people in my life--whom I have now. I know from experience that they aren't easy to find and that I starve a little without them. Although I'm certain they exist in Arizona and other corners of the Southwest, I have a whole family of them here, given both by blood and by choice. And that's worth a lot.

So the thumps and pounding overhead at 2 a.m. and the loud conversations in the hallway in the middle of the night are things I may just have to suck up. But still dreaming on Craigslist continues to be my favorite indoor sport.