A Year in Review: Moments That Made Homes
A Costco photo envelope holds my most cherished memories, the thick stack of pictures traveling with me across country borders. Sometimes they stay in the envelope, other times they make it on the walls in my latest of temporary homes. I write this in an apartment in a country I knew next to nothing about this time last year, my living room lit by clusters of string lights and the orange glow of the heater. This was a year of connecting through disconnecting, goodbyes in graduation gowns and at train stations, boot tracks on rocky terrains and chocolate bars on top of mountains. It consisted of big changes, yet changes characterized by the small moments within. Here are a few.
Two weeks into a two-month-long stay in Poland, I sat in a train compartment with five other people, four of whom I had just met the past week. We reveled in having our own compartment until the doors opened and two women entered, disgruntled at us having taken their designated seats. Those of us traveling together squeezed into the remaining seats, sharing four between our six bodies. We began to chat, the conversation morphing from small talk to one of the Polish women telling us about her dreams of working with animals. “Let’s all share our dreams,” someone said, and they emerged then, one by one: education and publishing, home-owning and animal care. After, I leaned out the train window, mesmerized by the curves of the train following the tracks and the cool night air on my skin.
My phone has been on airplane mode since July, both a representation of my motion and a reminder of the freedom of not always being connected. A pair of sturdy boots took me to the border of Poland and Slovakia, the mountain ridge of which I walked with one foot in each country; a pair of good sandals led me through the umbrella-decorated streets of San Juan and the familiar tourist castle of Universal Studios’ Harry Potter World.
A short trip to Italy revealed my failure to reproduce the language my ancestors spoke—an immense sadness at words unexpressed, yet with the joy of entering a place my family used to call home. I took my first motorcycle ride through the narrow streets of Naples, sipped an espresso with soda water and ate a custard-filled croissant at a small coffee stand in the city. Twice-a-day gelato runs and walks past Renaissance-age designs pulled me in, so much so that my time in the country ended with a sprint through the Rome airport as they announced the final boarding call for my flight to Casablanca.
Constant motion brought with it small problems: a glass bottle without a bottle opener, a slightly-too-narrow hiking boot that squeezed my toes together, an outbreak of mysterious bug bites. Yet someone always had a solution: a lighter used to pop open the top of the bottle, a night in the freezer with plastic baggies full of water for the too-small boots, cloves of garlic rubbed over the bug bites to reduce swelling.
In Oregon, on a research trip for my novel, I ran my fingers along the thousands of book spines in Powell’s bookstore, made myself butternut squash noodles with goat cheese at my Airbnb and promised myself a writing retreat like this every year. A French bakery on the outskirts of the University of Oregon campus served both as a setting for a novel scene and a reminder of the first place that sparked my love for travel and things unknown.
Work came in the form of changing linens and cleaning bathrooms in exchange for free accommodation and food, tutoring given online to students six time zones away and classes taught to students hoping to study in the States. From tacos to pierogis to tagine, my stomach consistently filled as my wallet emptied. A coworker from Romania worked his magic with aubergines and concocted an irresistible chili; a coworker from Germany made melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and perfectly cooked veggies.
In Morocco, I watched at least fifteen men chase after a pickpocket until they caught him, fell into the duet-like rhythm of darija exchanges. On a rainy Saturday afternoon in December, a musician played the lute for an audience of two on a blue-patterned couch while a cat periodically ran in the room carrying one newborn kitten after another between her teeth. A man I met in a small town became a friend who, when we go into the mountains, talks about how they make his heart open. Along the trails he has memorized, we watch the newborn lambs learn to walk, follow the goat herd as the sun sets.
From a rented college home to a brief interlude at my family home to new homes I entered with only two bags, I have felt both displaced and liberated, possibilities seemingly endless. A wooden cabin on top of a hill brought lessons of acceptance and trust; its bonfires around which we shared both laughter-inducing games and moments of vulnerability. A small apartment on the edge of a forest offered a recluse for creativity to release itself. A cafe tucked into a labyrinth of winding streets invited visitors in with guitar strums, pop music sung in a circle as the echoes bounced off the walls.
Home has been fluid, and with fluidity comes freedom—it sounds like the pull of zippers, tastes like oil-drizzled veggies grilled on an open flame, feels something like the swing of a door on its hinges as it opens again and again.
