Another take on HOME.
4/3/2024
As I’m shown around the house that I will stay in for the next month with a group of Italians I met online only months ago, I start to wonder, what is it that makes things look staged? What’s the difference between something real and something framed to look that way? The curtains are drawn, the lights blink on, a second or two is given to the audience, me, to bear the scene before the first actor struts in. The stage is a living room, connected to a kitchen, the space has three exits. There’s scraps of handwritten somethings on the coffee table, beloved hand knit blankets are tossed on the couch, something in a basket sits on the dining table. There’s evidence of living, and yet why does it seem incapable of providing exactly that? When you see a play in a school amphitheater, the rows of chairs, the heads sitting next to you, the curtain itself, are all juxtaposed reminders of the two-dimensional pretending to be three. We know how a mess in our own life appears, but to witness the aftermath of one is a curious event. When there are water rings left on the table but I didn’t leave the cup, why does my presence feel invasive, and the place so vulnerable? I think it’s part to do with that stunning realization in childhood that billions of other lives are unfolding at the same time as yours and has absolutely nothing to do with you, a realization that reappears in your adult life when you catch glimpses into others’ humanness like flecks of dried skin upon one’s face, someone stuttering over a word they haven’t practiced out loud enough, an unzipped fly. I linger on the question, why did I think the world stopped turning if I wasn’t there to watch? As for the house, I wanted to bring it out from the distance, out from that stage, and into my grasp to resolve the irony of my standing in it. But when would it feel less like a playhouse and more like a house? Maybe after the first good sleep would the 200-year-old Italian stone start to feel familiar or after the first belly laugh would the exposed staircase seem like a good place to stoop. Maybe the first time I feel relaxed. Meanwhile, my feelings of not-home are spreading all over my skin like a rash. Itchy with unease. All I need now is a doctor telling me it’s in my head to consecrate my arrangement. Tonight will be one of those nights that I must forcefully send myself to sleep with good thoughts like: I am in Italy, I live for free, I am free, I am surrounded by free people, and I have free time for free thought. What will I do with my freedom? I am loved, look for the gifts and blessings. How many can I find in a day?