Aha

I think this may be it, the secret to my sense of mild discomfort here. A large house amplifies the artifice of a dwelling. It's an imperfect sentence but it may be the best I can do right now. In other words, the ideal for me is to live in the woods with a tent or no tent or a tarp. But if there has to be a house (which there does if you want to write and stay dry and have a computer, etc.), let it be a small one, womb-like and safe, with no spaces to worry about. This high ceiling and open space calls attention to itself, and what it says is "I am not nature." The best for me was the 8x6 cabin on my friend's land a few miles from here.

This discovery started in Alaska, after several days camping, when my friend and I stumbled upon a vacant cabin. It wasn't open, but we camped on the porch. We were so excited, for the flat surface if nothing else. But I soon found myself less happy than I'd been the past few days.

What I have here is music and books and old letters. Just now I picked a book off the shelf and opened it at random. A poem by Rilke:

Rest! ... whatever happens is good. Even the bravest man should, for once, stretch out his feet, and relax at the edge of a silken sheet. Not always to ride on a dusty path. For once to let your hair fall untied and to leave your collar open wide and to sit in a silken chair, and know to the very roots of your hair the pleasure of having taken a bath. And again to learn that women are real. How the white ones move, how the blue ones feel; what soft hands they have, how their laughter sings when the blond boy brings the lovely dishes heavy with fruit.