I'm spending yet another night at the law office, and not the remote one on a sailboat docked in Marina Real. I don't recommend sleeping on a blow up mattress in one's law office, or spending the night in any office for that matter. It can really mess with your self image - unless you dig this sort of thing. It's better than sleeping on the back seat of my truck parked at Walmart in Nogales, much better actually. I've been displaced so many times in so many ways over the last 9 months I have become darn near used to it. One thing I've learned is hardship experienced for a purpose is doable, as compared to hardship merely by circumstance. Knowing the children are safe in their beds and not in some hotel unnecessarily during their first week back at remote learning makes a few more nights for me at the family law office ok. I've spent nights in so many odd places over the years you would think I gravitate to these little adventures in spite of the practical ability to stay at any hotel I want, especially at my age. I still remember the night at the bus station in Haifa when I was 21 or 22, the nights in the airline terminals, in that little tent while motorcycling across the US, the night in Bob's youth hostel in Amsterdam with the guys snoring loudly all around me, so many nights in the Bounder motor home across Arizona and the US, the night as a young child at ranch camp on the ground at Mt. Lemon when my sleeping bag got wet from the rain, the night anchored in the Catalina 25 swing keel Singmeaway beside the island of Matir in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, nights on trains, nights on planes, nights on the floor of the synagogue youth lounge in USY, nights camping on the grass as a JCC counselor in training when we turned on the sprinklers and got everyone wet as foolish teenagers, nights sharing a pop tent in field training in the Israeli army Marva program killing time with my Aussie buddy fantasizing about how good McDonald's would taste at that moment. So many sleep-away adventures I can hardly remember them all anymore... When I think back on all the times and the places I've camped out away from home, it is easier to understand that this sleeping at the law office occasionally during my own divorce is not that big of a deal, and more consistent with my lifelong sense of adventure than a result of any temporary circumstance. Some people spend the night in domestic violence shelters instead of law offices. Tonight brought the unexpected delivery of the DVD movie, the Martian, outside the office door. Nobody in my own family, nor any friend outside of my work, thought to send a care package. Too busy with their own problems, I suppose. Drove to and picked up dinner at my favorite Chinese food place earlier tonight, wolfed it down in my truck in the parking lot, then came home to the office and enjoyed the movie immensely on my office desktop using a generic dvd player I downloaded from the internet and the excellent headphones I acquired for my digital recording studio. Among other comforts, we stock cases of grape and cherry old school fruit rolls at the law office for the kids' snacks. I had one of each flavor for desert. Am I displaced or am I just adventuring - it's really all on your point of view. There's definitely something about sleeping in the office that doesn't feel right because I quickly take the walk of shame when I load my things to and from my car. This too shall pass and one day I will look back on these nights at the law office like I do all the other nights in all the other places around the world, not as something to hide, but evidence of my true and unique identity. Been trying to figure out who I really am under all the layers and this is who I am.