All The Comforts Of Home.

I’m not too sure when I first began to understand, or experience, the concept of a Home. I have moved from one house, one city, one country to another all of my life, rarely spending more than a few years in one place. The only exception was my last residence, a large house I bought about nineteen years ago in a small city. Looking back, though, from the comfort of my new apartment, it never really felt like home.

Perhaps this has something to do with military service, and the constant moves necessitated by different postings, peace-keeping duties, war. Perhaps further back, with living in a boarding school for three periods of the year, and seeming to spend no time at my real home between unpacking at the end of term, and packing to return for a new term. And perhaps because most of these moves, military or civilian, were necessitated by the demands or desires of someone else. It is hard to call a place you have been forced to move into, or one which has been taken merely to fulfill a temporary need, the wishes of another, home.

In April of last year I made another one of those moves which I promised myself would be the last one. I am not the youngest person any more, no longer the fit and sprite thing of past decades. My knee joints ache when I stand up after a long period of working at my desk, my elbow when I lie awkwardly in bed. To mention nothing of the, fortunately short, periods of backache when I first force myself out of that warm cocoon in the early light of each morning. I moved from a thirteen room house, which I own, into a two room, kitchen, bathroom apartment in a different city. I doubt many people in my old residence even noticed I had gone, despite years of being active in politics, social work and other aspects of local life. Those who did know, and those who live in the city which has now become my base, shook their heads and wondered how it would be possible. For one thing, they pointed out, you’re going to need to move all your things from a massive house, into a small apartment. It’s going to be a tight fit.

It would be, had I brought everything I owned there, here. I had to make some fairly hard choices, but not for the first time. Many years ago, leaving Belfast after university, I had a choice between my record collection, and my books. I sold the records, complete, for a fixed price and packed all my books into boxes. I have moved four or five times since then, and a few of those boxes have merely moved with me, from one house or apartment to another, unopened. There are books, collections of poetry, which I have not seen in about quarter of a century, if not more. And not all of them made it. A broken water pipe a few years ago, on a weekend when I was not in the house, wiped out a broad selection of books, many of which had been with me for decades, some of which had been printed centuries ago.

We all move on. We take the knocks and bangs of life as best we can, try to shake then off, and begin anew. For me, this final move is that shaking, discarding, finding myself again. Where some try and reinvent themselves on the last day of the year, with various promises of betterment, rarely kept, I have made no such obligations. Someone on Mastodon – my chosen social media platform – averred they would not be making any New Year’s Resolutions this last day of the year, but setting up a bingo card; the things they wished to achieve in the coming twelve months. Some might call it a bucket-list, others are more optimistic. I have made no such plans for the coming year. I have given up on making such plans, of committing myself so far in advance, without knowing what is to happen when we turn the next corner, let alone when meeting new people and new situations.

Instead I have laid out a few things on a freshly cleaned table, to greet some of the new friends I have made since coming here. There will be a hot meal when they first arrive, then finger-food to accompany a selection of drinks through into the new year. Last year I was invited to the new year party of people I had only just met, this year it is my turn, voluntarily. They will come into a small space I have been occupying for over eighteen months, and see the walls covered with books, works of art. They will see the boxes which have still not been opened, which are awaiting their turn, stacked against one wall in the kitchen, against another in the bedroom. I only managed to hang the last of the room lights, for the main room where we will be, and for the kitchen, last week. There has been no rush to complete, and no one visiting me today is expecting anything to be finished. We are all in the same position: finding our way in life, in a story-line we do not know, never quite making it all perfect.

And, for the first time, I can say that I am inviting my friends into my Home, because that is the way it finally feels.

Image © Urban Camera.