Why do we need a house? When we start in this world, we live in our parents’ house, and later when we grow up, we try to find our own house. A place to sleep and to keep all your stuff. Is this a social need or it comes in our genes?
When I lived with my parents, my personal space was my room, and some other corners of the house. Later I moved to Barcelona, and shared a flat with other people. My house was actually my room, but my flatmates didn’t respect my space, and I have to move to another place. Then I was the rent-owner, and other people came to live in “my” house. All my stuff was in different rooms. I also moved to another house, with all my stuff (including furniture) and lived alone. Is your stuff what defines your house?
Meanwhile I travelled quite a lot, and slept in a lot of different places, from somebody’s high status house to a tent in the jungle. And I felt those places, most of them, as my house. Is a house the place were you sleep?
Finally, I enjoy a lot having visitors in my house. So perhaps a house is the place where you have your stuff, where you sleep and where you host other people.
· Can you put all your stuff in a single suitcase? Then your house can travel with you easily.
· Can you sleep in any place? Then your house can be any place in the world.
· Can you welcome a visitor, and show him/her the city, even staying in a hotel? Then you can feel any city as your hometown.
These days I’m getting a lot of chances to travel and live around the world. From Mexico to Argentina, from Hungary to Korea. And despite I love my house with my beautiful terrace, sometimes I think that my house weighs down my flying spirit. I envy the snails, who travel with a house, but having a camper is not the solution. The solution is to lose weight, to find ways to have less stuff, or to keep it in cheap places. And then, fly!
To me a house is a place where you have, more importantly than all, a bed and a kitchen. Possibly, a table where you can meet and feed your friends.
It is, indeed, important to be able to take these concepts away with you when you travel.
A different concept is that of a “home”. In a narrow sense, it is the house I live in. In a broad sense, it is a certain landscape, country, people, nation.
And, after living abroad for so long, I have the two concepts of home, the narrow and the broad, in different countries. Hence, I’m always homesick.
I once visited Oxford (to play a go tournament) and I got to sleep in a quite big youth hostel. Once I was there I noticed how people, apparently not related knew each other and greeted someone who had “come back”.
There where people actually living there since the hostel had a kitchen (to share with all the people), beds and showers… and even a little library/reading room. And I liked the idea very much.
Since that day I’ve been thinking about getting my things as small as possible and try that at least once in my lifetime. Maybe I’ll like so much that I’ll stay forever…