There are two kinds of travellers: hunters and gatherers. Hunters seek peak experiences at the expense of personal comfort and even safety:

"It was fantastic! We trekked uphill for five days and ran out of food after two!"

Gatherers, like me, tend to domesticate our environment, collecting favorite coffeeshops, restaurants, and walks in every locale, replicating the rhythms of home-making no matter how far from home we go. And we tend also to bring a little totem from home along with us--I like to think of myself as a light packer, but my slippers always make it in the carry-on.

The trouble with making yourself at home everywhere is that you can end up feeling homesick for every place you've ever been. My morning tea shop in Yangon, the backstreets shortcut to my favorite park in Bangkok, the sublime noodle stand in Savannakhet, the world's best muffaletta in Lafayette: I miss them all....

Here's a menorah to fit even the smallest apartment, and a small cool poem by Mark Strand:

The first snow of the year always reminds me of one of my very favorite poems, James Wright's "Milkweed" from his book The Branch Will Not Break:

Milkweed

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now.
It is all changed.

Wisdom in a photo caption: "A jumbled arrangement of cardboard boxes imitating buildings. No matter how big the construction, it is inevitably composed of smaller parts."

There's a force I've often described, only half-jokingly, as the Tyranny of New York. It's what keeps us stuck where we are because we fear that we if give up an apartment, we'll never ever find another one as good or as affordable. This week, the chains were broken: we were notified by our landlords that they're selling the building and we have to be out by December 31st.

I'm not much of a joiner. Back in school, you'd find me hiding out in homeroom during pep rallies, smoking under the bleachers during ball games. Need a snarky comment from the sidelines? I'm your gal. Actually participate? Not so much.

That's why I'm so surprised at myself lately.

All this past week, illness kept me laid up at home. But on my one foray outside to trudge a gauntlet of doctors' offices and x-ray facilities, the grace of the city found me on the B68 bus.

Think Curing your apartment is hard? Try renovating an entire 19th century farmhouse by yourself and on the cheap. It makes for a daunting task but a great read as James Graham chronicles his renovation adventures over at Builders Share. In between the spray foam insulation and roofbeams are moments of wisdom:

Have company in your Cure with this poem by Robert Frost. Get a fresh cup of coffee before you sit down: it's a long one, but worth it..

In the Home Stretch

She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.

On lazy Sundays, there's nothing better than curling up* with a good book. But for getting through the rest of the days, often it's not whole books we turn to, but single lines of inspiration, calls to action, or simply commiseration from which we draw power or peace.