I’ve been in DC this past week. The difference is, for the first time in six years I’m not a resident. Our lease ended in May. We packed our belonging up into two shipping containers and jetted off to Europe. On our last day out, I managed to catch our super. He wandered the empty apartment like an empty maze, smiling in that kind of way that only expresses disbelief. “Six years!” he proclaimed. “Aiight man, good luck.”
It felt weird landing in Dulles, opening up Lyft, and not clicking the “Home” button. We’ve been staying with our friends Oscar and Les, their basement recently became an empty nest while their son is gallivanting in Seattle. I feel like I’m unpacking every time I fish out a sock. Out suitcases are splayed out on the floor like a massacre of clothing and toiletries. I can’t find shit. Every once in awhile, I scout for something before realizing that’s it’s squished up against furniture pads and boxes, somewhere out there in the jurisdiction of the shipping company.
Oscar and Les’ place is amazing. There’s a deck to catch sun and look out at the backside of the very-DC houses (something I always envied). They graciously stocked up on eggs and bread and condiments. Even our old house plants that they adopted are situating themselves in their new digs. They told us to make ourselves at home, and by all purposes, we have.
But feeling at home isn’t so much in those moments of intention. It helps to have a stocked kitchen, a comfortable bed, your partner at your side, and a considerable amount of your own shit around. But it’s in those moments between – feeling around for light switches, the foreign temperature of the floor on your bare feet, negotiating with unfamiliar shower faucets and their fickle temperature settings. These are not complaints, but rather observations – observations of things that fall into the subconscious when you’re actually at home.
But over the next few months, we will have no address. We will be living out of our suitcases, even if we are able to stuff our shirts into various closets and drawers during the lengthier stays. There’s an excitement about being somewhere new, and I usually most enjoy it when stepping outside. Discovering cafes and bakeries, encountering local flora, noticing the slightly-different hue of blue in the sky. If I can approach the inside life with the same curiosity, this era of vagabonding could be an easier pill to swallow.