displacement (and starting a new life)

In the turbid lead-up to writing this, I typed 'displacement' into my wikipedia search bar. There are over twenty definitions for the one word. The best one is under Physics and states that 'angular displacement' is a change in orientation of a rigid body; the amount of rotation about a fixed axis. This evokes glorious images for me of rotating corpses. Wheel of Fortune Rigor Mortis. Spin a corpse, tuppence a turn. Try your luck, win a prize! 

Ahem. 

In all seriousness, it's a different type of displacement that concerns me. The Oxford Dictionary defines 'displacement' as

[noun] : The action of moving something from its place or position. 

So if I were to change that to 'displace'

[verb] : To move (remove) something (someone) from its (her) place (home) or position (comfort zone). 

Travel is not displacement. Travel is letting yourself wander from your place and then return. It's one of my favourite feelings. Moving around with no purpose but to be in a new part of the world. But for three months now I have been truly displaced. I haven't had a place (a Home). Now, I am placed again. I have a place. It feels nice. But it makes me ponder what was the whole problem with not having one.

I signed the contract for our new flat sight unseen. Ella said it suited us. It's got a bay window and neutral wall paint and my God, I was so desperate. It could have had plastic windows, or no windows for that matter, and I still would have talked myself into it. 

Ours is the only house in the street painted a cheerful, wintery blue. We each have a set of brass-coloured keys. The day we sign, we haul our bags up the stairs. I realise I've been living out of these two bags for five months and two days. I foster a bitter, festering hatred for every item they contain. All my clothes are dirty. Important papers float around, worn and dog-eared, suffering for their lack of a filing cabinet. I've never wanted to own something so much as I want to own a coat hanger at this moment. Finding a tangled spidery pile of them in a storage cupboard is possibly the highlight of my afternoon.

Walking in feels wrong. I hate the house. I hate the polished blonde wood floors and the brass door handles. It smells funny. The lighting is too yellow. The fireplace is tiny and useless and dumb. The carpet is worn and I don't like the square, brown couches. I smile and coo with the girls but I want to punch holes in the creamy walls. 

Violence why? It wasn't home. It wasn't my place. It's the same reason traveling is different to living in a friend's lounge. When you're traveling, day-to-day place is intentionally fluid. Meanwhile, true place --Home-- is where you came from and where you'll go back to. That's why bouncing around Italy and Greece was frivolous fun and why bouncing between London living rooms was a drain on every intimate cell of my being. So when I stepped into my new house and discovered this, too, wasn't Home, I wanted to destroy everything. 

Fortunately I mastered the impulse and now I love this place. Because I've accepted the fact it's my place. I am no longer displaced.

Advice for moving countries is as follows. Moving with no house and no money is not a great idea. The point at which you've thoroughly exploited every contact you have for their couch and are officially out of options is quite scary, actually. I can't guarantee that a big blue house will fall into your life like it did mine (bless it). You may end up with your suitcases and your plastic bags and some wholesale copies of the Big Issue, the last of which we only narrowly avoided. 

But we did. I walked around my house this morning and here's some pictures I took.

Herein begins phase three of my 'trip'. I must find a better word for this kerfuffle of a life choice. Welcome to the big blue house. I'll be doing some drifting from here, and hopefully writing some things that make everyone think real hard about important stuff. And some things about places I go to. And also the mundane chronicles of my life. It's like a lucky dip. No, it's like roulette. Spin the corpse; win a prize.