On Wandering, Regina Spektor, Friends & Hardwood Floors
One of my favorite places on the internet is The Creative Independent. Described as “a growing resource of emotional and practical guidance for creative people”, the site publishes an interview with a different creative every day, from writers to visual artists to musicians to designers. A lot of writers I respect – Shy Watson, Elle Nash, lots of other people I can’t remember right now – conduct and write the interviews with more artists and writers I respect, which is how I found this place. It’s not an advice column; it’s better than an advice column, and I find myself coming to the site nearly every day to try to glean some practicality or wisdom from someone else about their creative practice and how they make it work.
“But what does this have to do with the home?” you may be asking. Well I’ll tell ya.
Yesterday’s interview was with musician Regina Spektor. A callback to my teenage-dom spent on tumblr if there ever was one. You can hear the way she speaks in this interview, that sort of flighty, fanciful way of rambling and conversing you’d expect from Regina Spektor. She says a lot of wonderful things in this interview, about her craft of songwriting and her work and the specific way that she approaches and creates that work. But I really love where she goes towards the end of the interview. Imagine my delight when Regina Spektor started talking about the home. In a way, at least.
“I think that as much as physical things really mean a lot to me—I’m very attached to tokens and talismans, and the things that I can touch and love, and photographs and tangible things.
I love the physical world. I’m not so zen that I’m just like, ‘I don’t need anything. I just want to lay my head down, and I don’t care where I sleep.’ I love having any kind of permanent structures and things in my life. But in another way, I think I did learn very early on that a lot of it is what you carry inside and who you have around. To me, still today, I think as much as I love the comfort of home, your actual home is the people in your life.”
She’s saying a lot here, but let me tell you what sticks out to me.
There was a time in my life, or perhaps I should say, for much of my adolescent life up until I found myself in Wyoming, I was really obsessed with transience. At sixteen, I counted Into the Wild amongst my favorite books. I got really obsessed with outdoors and wilderness podcasts in college. I entertained the idea of van living, let it become a quiet dream. I knew next to nothing about the outdoors, but I was sure I could learn. What mattered most to me, however, was the movement, the idea of roaming. When I lived in Oxford and befriended all these boys in bands, I was enamored with the idea of touring life. I loved how hectic and greasy I imagined it to be, loved the idea of crashing at the homes of acquaintances, being at the mercy of someone’s good will to a certain extent. At one point I wanted to couch surf, at another I wanted to WWOOF. When I imagined where I would be in my adult life, I never pictured a specific place. I always pictured myself splitting my time between many places, finding some way to make a life in many different towns and cities. I never wanted to put my feet up and rest. I wanted to wander forever.
I still have this tendency, to a certain degree. The desire to involve myself in many things at once, my tendency towards being alone. There are still lots of places I’d like to live, can see myself living. Wyoming beat out of me a good bit of the romance of an outdoorsy transient life (I learned how much I didn’t know, and also learned there was no one to teach me, and how expensive it is to try to teach yourself), but I still have the desire to explore, to travel, to soak up as much as possible. But I like what Regina says here. I am also not so zen that I don’t care where I sleep (though I’ve slept in lots of cars because I was too broke for hotel rooms over the years, but that’s beside the point). Here I am, at nearly 26, not living a transient life, but instead home in Jackson, with a newsletter about homemaking, fretting about when I will have time to mop the hardwood floors and will I have snacks for the company coming over.
I have become so much like my mother.
I am realizing that I also like permanent structures in my life. That scares me, in the same way that needing a routine scares me. But if the worst thing I’m scared of is permanence and stability, maybe I’m doing okay.
Let’s get back to Regina for a moment:
“But in another way, I think I did learn very early on that a lot of it is what you carry inside and who you have around. To me, still today, I think as much as I love the comfort of home, your actual home is the people in your life.”
What Regina closes with here, it also resonates with me, especially in this specific moment of right now.
I have a busy week ahead. Just this morning I said to my coworker, “I’m seeing this person today and this one tomorrow and this one this weekend – when do I get some alone time?” I said it as a joke (“you know like when you’re joking but you mean it?”), but I am already a little tired. When will I do the laundry, when will I clean up the porch, when will I finally tackle the plastic bin in my office full of issues of the Oxford American and stolen lit mags and old planners and notebooks?
I have a hard time keeping up with people, with nurturing and feeding friendship. I try, but it’s hard for me. I get frazzled and distracted. I try to do too many things at once. I forget to respond to texts because I open them at work, or because I don’t have the answer right now and I need to find it before I respond, or simply because I’m anxious. But I have always cared deeply for people and wanted to show them, wanted to take care of them. I am trying to be more intentional about that as of late, not worry so much about how big the gesture could be, but instead doing what is possible. Really, all that matters, most of the time, is spending time with people. And I think, this past year, I have been doing that as best I can. Because Regina is right. Home is the people in your life. And if you’re going to maintain it, all of it, you can’t spend all your time worrying about the hardwood floors.