Sally, wonderful piece! It reminded me of two times when my life was simple, one in terms of lifestyle, the other in terms of stuff.

When I was in grad school in a small college town, with a free ride scholarship, my lifestyle was very simple. Get to class, write papers, join fellow grad students at the local dive bar on Fridays for pitchers or the "sherry hour" hosted by a professor (no sherry, but "wine with a label" is how we described wine that wasn't the swill we could afford.)

My first job after grad school was in Chicago. I rented a studio apartment with a Murphy bed. Everything I owned could be boxed up and shipped via UPS to the next place, and was. That was in the 1980s, before we had to allocate space for computers and printers, and I moved to an apartment that wasn't furnished.

Thanks for triggering some wistful memories of a simpler time!