Moving.
Everything you feel is in a box to the left.
I knew this day would come. Honestly, most of the unease with winding up was just this very sense of foreboding, about this very day, that lasted some four months sub consciously.
I may not be able to legally live in this country in a few months, weeks, days.
A painfully repetitive state of mind that stops you from moving to a better neighborhood, buying furniture, buying anything. Be forcibly non-committal about everything.
Moving is a mirror to attachment
When you have a week to reduce everything you own to the bare necessities, you need to quickly and consistently ‘give up’ things.
I do not consider myself a hoarder. My style of decor is minimalistic. I don’t even have pictures on my walls. ‘Clutter-free’ is my mom’s mantra and is the reason why every time I come home for a visit, I have no home clothes to wear. Since we moved around quite a bit when I was a child, this feeling of live light, until the next flight is deep rooted.
Despite all this, when I had to wind up my frugal life in Los Angeles, in America, in 2.5 bags, I was up against a wall. My seventh time moving, it struck me how none of the kitchenware I own have backstories.
What do you lose when you don’t assign things sentimental value?
Reminds me of an exercise we had in the first semester of my screenwriting class — to bring an object that signifies something to you. It’s commonly used in directing too; introducing an object to help actors move the scene. I remember having a hard time with this because unconsciously, I’ve never placed emotional value in an object. My flight from India to Boston in 2013 did not allow anything more than essentials. There’s probably a pair of jeans that makes you feel special but if it is going to tip you over to excess baggage, buh-bye. It’s ruthless. You have to find yourself in a new environment by stripping away every iota of this identity you tediously put together.
My dream as a little girl was a perfectly furnished apartment for myself. They say success is when you achieve what you wanted as a child so in some ways, I guess I made it? This pad was witness to loneliness, company, loneliness in company, music, dance, tears, hopelessness, inspiration, creativity, hard work.
