The place where you live?
My apartment is situated in a 3 European stories building, on the second floor. It’s a typical Montreal apartment in the sense that the rooms are connected by a single hallway that runs the length of the building. When you enter by the main door, you walk through a tiny corridor that directly opens to our living room.
There’s a decorative carpet hanging on the wall that you can’t miss. I would describe as a boho slash aztec inspired style because of its distinctive patterns. I think the striped and geometric designs with the contrasting blue, green yellow and red colors are referred to as “Chinle”, which appears to be a type of Navajo pattern.
As you move beyond the Chinle wall carpet, you enter another tiny corridor. On the right, you’ll see 3 African masks hanging. Two of them were “borrowed” from my parents house and are both pretty small. One of the small ones has a distinctive round face while the other one looks almost like a plague mask. The third one is much bigger. It is almost 4 times bigger than the others. It was a gift from my parents’ trip to Benin. If you’ve ever stumbled across African masks, you might be aware that some of them look like the faces of angry soldiers. Some others have a combination of animal and human features, which is what makes their abstract designs look both familiar and quite uncomfortable to look at.
I think mine may be a Dan mask, which is characterized by a high forehead, a pouting mouth and a pointed chin. But to be honest, I haven’t really done much research on the subject. In Europe, or in the western world, we tend to see them as art pieces, but because of my family’s ancestry, I do consider masks as much more than simple pieces of art.
Facing the masks, you’ll find the bathroom, which is quite small but efficient. As you keep walking you enter the kitchen, with its red cabinet and in front of you will be a door, leading to the bedroom.
The apartment is not very big and each room can only welcome a few pieces of furniture. Once you have fit your essentials in each one of them, you’ll find that there isn’t much room left.
“You want to be creative and make the most of your space, but you are also forced to consider the realities of your daily jobs.”
In March 2020, as we all went home to work remotely for what we thought would be a couple of weeks, we clearly realized how unfit our space was for this adventure. But we stuck with it. We have rearranged it multiple times and tried every possible combination of our furniture and the available space.
Using a handmade bunk bed constructed just months before the pandemic struck, we made the bedroom into a dual room. This meant our bedroom also became the living room, while the former living room was converted into an office. We moved the furniture around a few times, changed the position of the desk, sold part of our big couch to gain some space… We tried it all.
The place where you grew up?
During the pandemic probably as a result of feeling cramped in a tiny apartment, I realized how much I miss my home region.
I miss the freedom I feel whenever I’m there. I can just take the car and drive. Beaches are my favorite place to go, especially from where I live. For 45 minutes you go through small towns, until you reach the coast. I like to take a drive where at one point, you’re on a hill looking out at the sea. It’s a feeling like no other. There is joy and a sense of freedom in it that we all seek.
Just the thought of it squeezes my heart. Fresh air mixed with the scent of the countryside and the smell of the sea is unbeatable.
You would find that funny to read if you knew me as a teenager. When I was living in France, I couldn’t wait to go abroad. I was impatiently awaiting any opportunity to make my way back to North America. Despite thinking I was right on some levels, I also think I missed out on a lot. I was too busy thinking about a better life that had to be somewhere else. And I can say that I wasn’t completely wrong. North American life suits me better.
But the feeling I have at home is something I’ve come to realize I will never experience anywhere else. Brittany is home. I miss it because of the memories I have there. Every time I’m there and walk by an aisle in a store, I remember all the times I went there hoping to find my favorite snacks (anything with chocolate, I don’t play favorites when it comes to sweets).
I’ve also spent a lot of time reflecting on this feeling. I wanted to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes it feel like home. It’s not just the memories that make it feel like home or the fact that I feel attached to the house I grew up in. I realized that If you retrieve the human that makes it feel home, I don’t think I would miss it as much.
What I love about driving to the beach or going to the grocery store is knowing that I’d be able to drive home to my family and friends. I know my parents will be there when I open my front door. When I walk into the living room, I can clearly describe where and how my parents will be seated. If one of them isn’t there; I know where to go to find either one in minutes. I can see myself going up the stairs and stopping by my little brother’s room and chatting while looking at the view from his room.
Although we have tons of memories there, what makes each one of my comeback feels complete, is the people filling my house.
Over the last five years, I’ve lived in more than eight different places. I don’t miss any of them, except maybe one apartment in Vancouver, which I really loved. Thinking about those places, I’m glad those days are over. I don’t have any bad memories there, but they all felt more like four walls than a home to me. It might be because I’ve never lived in the same place for an extended period, so I’ve never really had the opportunity to form strong attachments to a place. Or it could just be the knowledge that they weren’t meant to last forever.
I don’t know, but when I revisit the past, there are no feelings like the ones I have from my childhood home.
Your tribe is your home
It turns out I’m attached to my childhood home because it’s the place where my family and I all go back to.
I grew up surrounded by the noise coming from the lives of five other people. There was the buzzing sound of the TV, footsteps running up and down the stairs, my dad playing Ukulele, commentators’ voice coming out of my brother’s laptop, music coming from my sister’s room… I enjoyed the chaos and watching us all live our lives under the same roof.
All of us left the nest as we grew up and moved out. While I live in Canada, my older brother lives in Switzerland, my sister in Portugal, and my little brother is still in France but 900km away from home. Do you know how rare it is for us to be all gathered together? That has only happened once in the last five years.
I miss having the time to just be with them without thinking about the time remaining before I leave. There’s something about living next door to them that I wish I could experience.
