“Either to grow roots, to rediscover, or design your roots, to seize from space the place that will be yours, to build, to plant, to possess, millimeter by millimeter, your “at home”: to be all in all in your village, to know that you are a man of the Sevn, to make yourself a Puato man*. (*names of provincial counties)
Or the contrary, to be satisfied with the clothes to your skin, to keep nothing, to live in a hotel and to change hotels frequently, to change town, to change country; to talk, to read without feeling any difference four five languages; not to feel at home anywhere, or on the contrary, almost everywhere.”
George Perec/Species of Spaces
She looks anxiously at the apartment. She remembers how, a year and a half ago, coming back from New York, following the vision she had in the tense days of anticipation prior to their return, they put their bed in the living room, and nothing more. Clean, she thought, I want it to be clean. Empty. No clatter. One should be able to put one’s belongings in one suitcase and be prepared to leave at any given time. No books, no paintings on the wall, no carpets. No strings attached. Just the bare walls, and the bed. Simple life’s necessities.
She sighs. Her eyes scan the room, spotting the colorful carpets, the paintings on the walls, the pillows, a child’s toys scattered on the floor, piles and piles of papers lurking everywhere.
She examines a pile of paper. She finds a photo from her days in Amsterdam. She remembers the little house on the canal above the kinderkookkafe. The crooked floor. Throwing bread crumbs to the ducks from her window. She smiles. She scans the photo. She imports it into her computer. She sighs again.
Where does one begin?
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