Considerations of a Nomad

Among my friends, the joke is occasionally made that I am “homeless.”

Technically, this isn’t true – I do officially have a permanent residence, and if it were absolutely necessary, I could probably stay there for as long as I needed. But for a combination of strong personal and logistical reasons, I live a nomadic lifestyle, shuttling between friends’ places in MA, NJ, and soon NY.

I write on this topic today because being nomadic often involves being alone/lonely (2 separate but intertwined states), and because it often involves a feeling of misfit, of feeling like you’re the outsider – all of which are highly relevant to someone struggling with depression. Lastly, I write on this because it is a current issue in my life.

Living on the move definitely comes with its share of logistical difficulties. Luggage-wise, you must stay lean because there’s simply no room for excess. Commuting can be wearisome, as you battle road fatigue and what seems like dangerously too many incompetent drivers. Travel food is horrendous, but sometimes a cinnamon melt and medium OJ from McDonald’s are the only things that will keep you going. In general, I sometimes get the feeling I’m shaving years off of my life, but then I remember I’m young and therefore invincible. Well, at least for a few more years…

Really, though, none of this is all that bad. The nature of the human spirit is such that, given strong enough motivations plus sheer necessity, it will rise admirably to meet most challenges.

What is more difficult to deal with, at least for me, is the feeling that you just don’t belong anywhere.

Now, I happen to be someone who doesn’t get particularly attached to the places I live in. I grew up in a lot of different neighborhoods, and for a host of reasons, I guess I often never really even felt comfortable in my own home. Sleeping regularly on couches/futons doesn’t bother me in the slightest, and to some extent I even like them for their informality.

Really, it’s not the physical environment that affects me most. It’s something far more important.

When you live in one place for an extended period of time, that place becomes a part of you. It’s woven into so many of your memories because memory is so heavily tied to location. If you have roommates/friends you’re living with, the time you spend together day in and day out creates a common understanding between you all, an understanding that manifests itself in the conversations you share, the jokes you exchange, the language you use, the references you make, even just the way you treat each other.

It’s really in the small moments, and over an extended period of time, that you really get to know someone.

Being a nomad makes this damn near impossible. You miss so many moments, small and big (and everything in between) and you constantly get the feeling you’re just dropping in on other people’s lives for a few days, before taking off once again to do the same thing w/another group of people.

Most devastatingly of all, it makes it hard for you to be a good friend, or at least a consistent friend. And consistency really may be at the core of friendship. At the end of the day, it’s the people who you go through shit with, and who go through shit with you, that count as your friends. Being a nomad significantly precludes this. Sometimes you can feel your very sanity being threatened by a constant nagging “outsider-looking-in” feeling.

The fact is, it’s not just nomads who experience these difficulties. I imagine a LOT of people find it difficult to really connect with others, people who don’t have a strong sense of home. There’s a reason they talk of the “loneliness epidemic” these days. For instance, when I worked briefly in the ER as an EMT-B trainee, I heard stories about how some people would come in just to have someone to talk to.

To combat some of these difficulties, one thing I like to do is to try to find bits and pieces of “home” wherever I happen to be. All this takes is a bit of observation.

Let me give you an example.

A few weeks ago I was sick with a mean chronic cough. I was sitting in the Brandeis dining hall, hacking away, when Yen, the Chinese woman who mans the front desk, walked over and offered me a mint. When I declined, Yen expressed her concern for me, then offered to make me some hot water with honey.

Now, I don’t actually know if honey water is a “thing” in the US. I know people put honey in their tea, but putting honey in plain hot water is something I’ve only ever seen one other person in the US do – my father.

But people in China do it all the time, at least in my family. One way my grandmother shows affection for me is by offering me honey water, often in a tone of voice that suggests that if I don’t take it, one or the both of us will immediately drop dead (it always seems she’d be heartbroken if I were to decline).

When Yen offered me that glass of honey water, it took me home, first to my early youth, and then to China, which of all the places in the world I think of most as home.

You see how powerful memory can be, and how you can use it to find bits and pieces of home wherever you find yourself?

Ultimately, this amounts to nothing more than recognizing the universality of individual experience, and that regardless of outer trappings, we’re all pretty much the same when it comes to the basics. Even idiosyncrasies often share a common denominator.

When you really come to this conclusion and believe it, the world seems like much less of a barren place, much less hostile, much less indifferent.

And you feel less alone. Even if you’re constantly uprooting yourself and can’t let yourself develop emotional attachments to places/people.

Lastly, before I cut out, I would like to take the time to thank the guys in Ziv 129-304 for taking the risk to house me for the past few months. It’s a hell of a lot to ask to put up with a random stranger for an extended period of time, but you guys have made me feel incredibly welcome.

So Andy, Benjy, Evan, Sean, Steve, and Toly – whether or not shit goes down in the future, just know that I really appreciate, beyond words, everything you guys have done for me.

Thanks.

-David

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