Un lugar antes de ahora y en el futuro, ¿es diferente?

A place before now and in the future– is it different?

Pensamientos | Thoughts

Reflections about a place called home?

Anna Koskinen

Last summer I moved into a new apartment. Finding it was not an easy task; none of the numerous apartments I visited felt just right. When I went to see this one, I was half an hour early (by mistake, I had written down a wrong meeting time with the realtor). There was not much else to do than just wait. It felt awkward to just stand there right next to the entrance, nodding shyly to the people entering the building, who took a quick glance at me saying “why does she just stand there?” Luckily, there was a bus stop right opposite of the entrance, so I took a few steps forward and pretended I was waiting for a bus, while still keeping an eye on the entrance, in case the realtor would arrive early. I noted a few other people arriving about 10 minutes prior to the meeting time who had the same awkward appearance as I had; an appearance of a person who knows being on someone else’s territory.

Finally, the realtor arrived. We climbed up on the third floor with the two other people who came to see the same apartment. Since we lived already then in the pandemic world, we could enter only one at a time, me having the chance to be the first one. I stepped into the apartment through a dark entrance and immediately felt a that I needed to have this place. The apartment was still taken over by the previous resident’s furnishings; I remember her beautiful oriental carpet and how it was placed diagonally on the floor. I didn’t take any pictures, it didn’t even cross my mind, since it felt wrong to take pictures in a stranger’s private space. I made a little round in the 29,5 m² apartment, posed some random questions to the current resident who was standing near the wall in between the kitchen area and the living room, and then rushed out to tell the realtor that I would like to rent the apartment.

It was the special atmosphere in the apartment that won my heart. The building is built in 1920’s. Its walls have seen so many bigger and smaller pieces of different lives. Previous residents’ steps have made the same wooden floor to creak and their feelings, dreams, fears and longings have absorbed to the walls, between the layers of different colored paint. These memories can be sensed when the apartment is naked – emptied from the previous resident’s belongings, waiting for the new resident’s belongings to take over the space. Moving in is a brutal action, and for a short while, the apartment resembles more of a dump than someone’s home. But then, little by little, furniture starts to find their place, cups, glasses and plates get hidden behind closets’ doors, books are places on the shelves and clothing is hung on hangers. And tah-dah! The apartment is now the home of someone new, waiting for her/him to add another layer to its story.

A home is often not just a shelter, where we fulfill our basic needs –sleeping, washing and feeding ourselves, to mention a few. It is also a place for self-expression. We surround ourselves with objects that appear beautiful to us, remind us of something or someone and/or are useful for a certain purpose. Then we arrange them in a way that is best suitable for us. When we make a place to feel like ours, it also creates us a sense of safety. At home, we can be the purest version of ourselves. Behind the wall, the street creates a striking contrast to a home. Outside we become strangers, just other people standing at a bus stop, taking a dog for a walk, lingering in the shops, having a picnic in a park. Our window is just another window in a row of windows to the random passers-by, anonymous people on their journey from A to B.

The current state of the world has made many of us to rethink our relationship with our closest surroundings. People have been forced to spend much more time at home and this has evoked inspiration to redecorate or even change a home. Many of my close friends have recently bought or rented a new place, some because or even in a wish for a life change – a home can also represent that to us. New area, new home, new me?