A Big Gaping Hole. A big gaping hole in my psyche? In my pocket? A big gaping hole in my morals? My heart? No, it’s a big gaping hole in my living room wall, and what a tough life I lead.
We are, all 5 of us, officially sequestered in about 40 square metres of space. We have somewhere to eat, somewhere to wash, somewhere to sleep. But we have nowhere to live. The living room door is sealed off with plastic to avoid the dust coming into our precious “living” space, but the incessant banging has no such respect.
I know there are people who have it worse. In Africa, one of my students invited me to her home where she lived with her parents and twelve siblings in a 3-room hovel with no running water, and where they cooked on a little fire in the middle of the living room. My friend Ben Tupper wrote about life and war in his book “Welcome to Afghanistan: Send More Ammo,”quoting such life in terms of “embracing the suck.” Even here in France, a good friend lived with her husband and three children in a studio for two years while waiting for assisted housing to come through with a bigger place.
And yet I am finally daunted. I am a rat in a cage that needs to squeeze sideways around the armoire, desk and dresser in my hallway to get to the bedrooms. A hamster that needs to squirrel around the table, four chairs and high chair to the refrigerator before making my way back to cut vegetables as they balance on the cutting board over the sink. I am a rabbit holed up in my bed watching Grey’s Anatomy on DVD, trying to escape the sensory overload all around me. I am beaten.
I know humans can adapt to any condition. I read Dutch priest Dries van Coillie’s book “I was brainwashed in Peking,” which occurred under the Mao Tse Tung regime in China, and could really follow the slow acceptance of inhumane living conditions after watching the sequence of events unfold in his book. Incredible discomfort may have terrible long-lasting effects on their psyche, but people can adjust. The impediment to acceptance, however, is an expectation that their condition will be short term, and/or it is not a way of life they merit.
I received the first order to make a cheesecake as my foray into baking gluten-free goods in the greater Parisian area. I had to turn it down because I simply don’t have the room to move around. I know that my caged life is short-term, and it is by choice, but I can’t help but put my life on hold until the big gaping hole is filled. (One week, two at most).
* This post originally appeared in my former blog, Perfect Welcome, and may contain some modifications or discrepancies in the names or comments.
