Posted: 2020-11-25
Note: This was actually from back on August 26th, but like so many things I never posted it. I'm posting it now cause it still feels... important to me, about me.
This last week I framed art and hung it on the walls in my new apartment. I found frames, hammered nails, and basically, just… Decorated. To most, this isn't a noteworthy occurrence, and rather, is simply the standard practices when moving into a new place. That is not the case for me.
My art is all rolled together and held in a poster tube. I've never had frames, and it's always been held up with putty, not nails or tacks or anything else. Putting things in frames makes them less portable. Hanging things on walls implies permanence. Everything I own has always been set up to be easy to take down - to fold into the smallest shape and pack it safely into a car at the drop of a hat. I'm the transient in my own home, never quite settling in.
I don't know when it started. I don't know if there was even a “start” to the thinking. It wasn't a defined moment or catalyst. Instead, it was an immutable truth - I would not live here forever. So I would look at art, carefully taped to a wall, and think, “That would look better framed…” and immediately dismiss it, because that would make it harder to pack when I moved. Not if. It was never if, it was always when. A universal truth, I would move, and it was just a matter of when.
So I never settled into a home. I never did those final stages of touch up, because that would just make things more difficult when I moved. That isn't to say I didn't want a home.
I had grand plans for the way I would setup my eventual home. The kinds of furniture and layout, the ways I would build it into my space. And in the meantime I would make do. Cheap furniture because I didn't want to spend money on things that I might not be able to keep. A constant battle about space layout and modifications and telling myself I can do that when I have my space, and I should just make do for now.
I've moved across the country half a dozen times, and watched my parents do the same. For opportunities and needs and doing what they have to to stay above water and as happy as they can. My own path trajectory has been a hodgepodge of jumps and watching some semblance of stability ripped from under me. I was lucky though. I got to take two months last fall, and spend time with my parents and think about what it is I want to do, where I see myself, and who I want to be. I reassess this over and over, and keep finding different and yet similar answers every time, but the difference this time is that I had a large block of time and no expectations, and I spent it in a transitory mindset, and in a transitory space, having access to not-my-laptop and sleeping on my parents' couch for those two months.
What did I come out of it? The kinds of things I want to do haven't changed. I want to build, and I want to build things that help people. But I realized I also want to have a stable spot, even if I can't always be there, and even if it might burn down tomorrow. I want a space that is mine. I want a space that I can feel safe and not have to worry about anyone else, and I can dig my hands in, even if I lose it tomorrow.
I think that's why so many people are afraid to move at all - to lose that sense of stability. For whatever reason, I always knew I didn't need it, that I could up and move, but what I didn't realize was how comforting it is. How well it can help you center and work through things.
I don't need stability, and if everything falls out from under me tomorrow, I know that I can keep going… But I don't have to live constantly expecting it. So, now, I have frames, and art on the walls, and I'm building furniture and running cable and making this space mine, because even if I lose it tomorrow, at least today, I want it to be my space.