Nomad

I may look like a WASP, but beware. I have the restless soul of a gypsy. I don't know if I come by it genetically, or through experience, but I spent the first 18 years traveling the world with my family. When it was time to be on my own, I couldn't stop. I kept traveling and moving and settling down and packing up. I have seen great things, and wouldn't have it any other way. It is who I am.

This is the longest I have ever been anywhere, right here at 2014 N. Las Palmas Ave.. At times my desire to pack up and go becomes so strong I feel like I should tell my husband to restrain me. To lock me in the house. To take me on an exotic vacation to satisfy my hunger for adventure, for living on your wits, for new sounds, sights, colors, experiences, histories and stories. Because for me, traveling was always the one time I felt truly, deeply alive.

Now I have lived in one place for seven years. And I have been in California for 10. For years I would not plant anything in the garden. I loved when my husband did. I love his tomatoes, his peaches, his plums and his herbs. I harvest them and delight in them. But I would not plant. My therapist said it was because I was never anywhere long enough to watch anything grow. Why would I? What was the point?

So I made an effort to plant. Wildflowers. They need no care, and they are the most beautiful of all. I adore the California poppy, the baby blue eyes. The first year they bloomed I almost wept. They were so beautiful. I had planted them. They greeted me every morning as I walked down the stairs.

When I was with child, the one part of my pregnancy my husband looked forward to was me "nesting." Books warned that an overpowering urge to nest would overcome women in the third trimester, and become almost preternaturally intense right before birth. He waited and waited. The nesting urge never came. Not for me.

Instead I would say things like, We are a family now. We would be happy anywhere. We could live in a single room with a burner and a mini fridge and we would be happy. It's a gypsy mentality.

As we filled our house, with boys and toys, I found myself still gravitating toward things we could pack up quickly. I buy art, not refrigerators. I buy rugs, not sofas. I buy comforters and duvets, not bookshelves. The art I buy has gotten nicer. I have expanded beyond the post card collection of my single days--now it just adorns a small wall beside my desk. But the point was the same: It had to be easy to move, or it would be left behind. I am always ready.

But now, six years after my first child was born, and nearly four years after my second, I find myself wanting to nest. It is a crazy urge unlike any I have ever had. I do not recognize it. Perhaps it is brought on by the precariousness of life in this economy--knowing we might have to leave our house, so it feels all the more precious. But all of the sudden I want art hung and bookshelves bought. I want furniture rearranged and beauty and order and thought and feng shui in my living space. I want an oasis of peace in this chaotic, unpredictable world.

My parents had beautiful art--but we moved so much it was never well presented. Half our possessions never came out of boxes as we moved from place to place. Why did we have them I often wondered? Because the Navy paid to move them, I guess.

Since we wed we have bought one chair (beautiful) a bed (for Theo) and two faux-Chinese bed-side tables. Suddenly I want to make my house beautiful. I covet bookshelves, beauty and permanence. I will never believe in it, but I feel a deep, deep craving to create a feeling of permanence, even if that illusion is only temporary.

Hey Jonathan, I feel like nesting! I'm only seven years late. You wanna buy a bookshelf?