I went shopping today. // Complex decisions involving many moving parts, external limiting factors, (or “budgets”), changing possibilities and demands, hypothetical landing-places wherefrom to re-evaluate the terrain, I am good at problem solving with a “flow”, but I am not good at finalizing a concrete answer, which leaves me bad at packing (I procrastinate and overpack), online shopping (I procrastinate and overshop), and “writing a book” (Iol). But I don’t want to talk about ontology, not today, because my nerves are fried after completing two giant shopping tasks, one of which was, making “the” IKEA purchase for moving into our house.

I’ll not bore you with details, just know that this single purchase was for everything “absolutely necessary to move in”, with a set budget, and a set (according to Javanese astrological caluculations, 4 Juli) moving day. I’ve been planning this IKEA purchase for… an embarassingly long time, based partly on an ongoing evaluation of what is locally available/locally made/good quality, plus not stupidly expensive or wasteful. (Bali has a rather insane price-range, catering to some of the world’s “poorest” and some of the worlds stupidly richest people.) (Okay, rules. We aim to make “everything we can” ourselves, to keep purchased items “high quality”, with no unnecessary plastic, as basic and practical and long-lasting “as possible”, and not least, pleasurable to live with.) (There is a whole other blog post about which “luxuries” we’ve chosen to include in our house, and why.) (Examples of “luxuries” include a bathtub, an oven, a french press, etc.) The point is, it was my responsibility to press “purchase”, which I finally did, and that is a big weight off my mind.

So I thought I might photo edit, to soothe frazzled nerves, and there may be a little scattered photo mix over the next days, some from Java, some from Bali, some of a wijaya kusuma bloom that happened a few nights ago. (A joy to behold wijaya kusuma, when she blooms, the sovereign queen of the night. Growing since last year’s Lebaran, every successive bloom is more dramatic, an anticipated performance under cover of darkness, with hushed whispers from the banana trees, a stage-lit dream or an opera unfolding over the course of hours, the rich pleasure of her slow-opening, light-gathering into radiance, expression… then by sunrise, she is spent.)