Making a nest

In front of my window there were two pigeons building a nest in the Christmas tree. It was wonderful to see their commitment to the work and each other and observe their collaboration. 
But today the tree looked empty. They seemed to have abandoned their project. I really did an effort not to disturb them. 

I am still in the rather uncomfortable in between homes state, with lots of boxes and my stuff in many different corners, spread over different places. A new studio/flat the old one, the garage in between. It gets on my nerves. Last time I wrote about experiencing health. Now I experience how the discomfort and stress of this transition stage damages my health. 

It doesn't have to be stressful but it is, because of its connection with old memories and emotions. 
I thought I knew by now, that home is in my own heart and a bit larger in my body and that I only have to relax to be at home anywhere and everywhere. But it is difficult to do because of attachments and instinctual reactions. 

It feels that my home has to represent who I am, and my stuff is composed of objects which support my sense of self and the continuation of that self in time, by the objects which carry my memories. The wooden shoes which my mother used for many years when she worked in the garden. The embroidery book of my grandmother, the little cupboard made by my grandfather, those objects represent my roots, my childhood memories, my identity. 
When you grow old and die you have to let go of it all. I don't have children with whom I share my ancestors. How come that what I have, is so much part of what I experience as being me? It can't be the same. 

I always wanted to live with very little possessions, like a monk or a hermit. Spiritual matters used to be so much more significant and important to me. But that is an attachment too. Spirituality is just like matter significant and irrelevant at the same time. 
Great saints or great healers and doctors also grow old, have illnesses and die, just like other people. They only had a different focus of their attention, different from most other people, but that doesn't mean better.

I still feel like I am playing in a bad science fiction movie, with that endless amount of artificial materials around me, plastics, metal, electronic devices, wifi waves, dirty smells and ugly noises. It is impossible to ignore technology.
There was a time that I really tried to ban that all out of my life. I lived in a tiny old house, and did get rid of almost all plastic, metal and electric stuff. I did use preferably handmade objects. I did grow some vegetables in my garden and did eat lots of wild herbs. What did inspire me at that time was what I had experienced during my stay with a tribe in the jungle in Indonesia. What you touch every day leaves a trace in the body. It did feel so much more vital to touch only those handmade simple objects. But life forced me to let go of that dream. Now I try to embrace everything and erase my prejudices and preferences. Sometimes that feels like a  liberation and sometimes it feels like a denial of who I am. 

Again that construct of who I am makes me feel dissonant. It is not a pleasant feeling. It is the source of all suffering according to the Buddhists. And the suffering stops when you can let go of the attachment to that idea of who you are. I try to figure out how to do that. Would my behaviour and my choices be different? I probably would be less stressed and could leave  a lot of things which I now just do to manage te stress.