Our Nursery Beds

Yesterday I went to my brother's home to pick up some things I had left there; during the last three years I have moved three times. Moving is an irksome undertaking. Multiply it by three and it becomes nearly unbearable. Due to several circumstances I stayed with my brother for several months (a bad break-up and my parents moving back to Curaçao led to my living briefly with an ex which led to my moving out, because there were some unresolved issues between us - insert a "Duh" here - and staying with my brother; in a very cramped nutshell)

I've never had a sense of rootedness; when I was four I was transplanted from the warm earth of Curaçao to the wintry soil of The Netherlands. I kept moving ever since. I've always had the feeling I left something behind after each move; perhaps, something important, or nothing of any importance, but still some thing. Like a blundering thief I left a trail of DNA - as it were - in all the places in which I have lived. Fingerprints. Flakes of skin. Fingernail clippings. Hair. Traces of semen. Arguments; heated or loving words that echo dispirited in their evanescent form; the people who uttered them long gone, replaced by strangers who do not ackowledge the spectres that still haunt their abode. I think this process of casting off bits of yourself is a natural process. Our homes become a reservoir for all the things we shed.

Now I have a place of my own. It is empty still. It's the first time I have lived by myself. Alone. Up till now there's only been the buildup of material things. DNA. It still has to be filled with words, memories, embraces, warmth.

These last few days I have been thinking of asking my boyfriend to come live with me; we have discussed this before. I had thought it a bit too soon to actualise it then. Lately however I feel the increasing desire to be with him 24/7; not out of some sense of envisioned loneliness, but because I want him to be a bigger part of my life. But how can I ask him to uproot himself? At any rate, he's coming over tonight; I can't wait.