Nomadic Homebody

I've just spent two weeks cat sitting for Josh and Andrea while they embarked on a cross country trip to deposit their car with Andrea's parents in Pasadena. They have a splendid two bedroom(ish) apartment in Little Italy, deliciously decorated by Andrea. It gets completely dark in the bedroom at night that way that I love; well not country dark, but damn dark for New York, and certainly darker than my room, into which shines the resplendence of various street lamps and decorations. On top of that, there's a delightful generator of some kind outside the bedroom window which provides the best white noise that money can't buy. I've been known to run my air conditioner and/or space heater specifically for the white noise. AND their apartment is that much closer to my office, so I got to sleep later!

Nevertheless, I got homesick. I always get homesick when I'm away from my home. My home, with my bed and my rug and my books and my loud noises and bright lights intruding on my sleep. Not just my city of residence, or country. I've been in New York this whole time, but I was still homesick. I even get homesick at sleepovers. Always have, and I guess always will. Not just like, man I wish I was in my own cozy bed, but more like, man I feel like an alien when I don't rest my head on my own pillow. I remember sometimes calling my mother to pick me up early from sleepovers when I was a kid, occasionally I made something up to refuse the sleepover invite altogether, I hated spending the weekend at my father's house in a foreign bed.

I stopped by my apartment a few times over the past couple of weeks to say hello, sit on my bed, look around and be comforted by it all. I came over to the LES on the weekend just to have coffee at my cafe. Little Italy is close in proximity, but a far cry from the LES that I've come to quite love.

At the same time, though, I feel like a bit of a nomad. I like living in different places, setting up shop and making new friends and seeing what's out there; visiting is fun, but there's always that heart tugging feeling after a few days. The beginning of a new place is always painful, that newness of a new city or apartment, but that place, eventually, becomes my home. Home is where the heart is, and I carry my heart with me wherever I go. Silly to leave it behind somewhere.