Whilst walking the night-time streets of Guildford, Eric remarked to me that it was a place that felt permanent; a place where one could put down roots. My home, and now hers, stands in complete contrast. Bournemouth is a new town, founded two hundred years ago as a seaside resort – which it still is.
She lectured me on the joys of her old inland town, with its stone walls and canals. I asked why one would want to put down roots, when you could have a beach instead?
She branded me a ‘flotsam person’, and that was that.
But I suppose I am, really. I carry things that remind me of the sea, so that I feel at home wherever I go. The feeling of being tied to a place, a town with history, isn’t for me. Like the sand that drifts forever eastwards, despite the groynes that try to stop it, I’m happy anywhere near the sea. I love the feel of transient beaches, transient lives, forever in motion. Years come and go, bringing with them the ebb and flow of people – students, summer students, tourists.
I am a flotsam person, a driftwood person, happy wherever I can wash ashore and sit on sand as the waves lap against my feet.
Comments
I'm definitely a 'settling' person. I'm not sure, though, to what extent this is fundamental to my nature, and to what extent it's a by product of being shy and introverted.
I struggle to interact with strangers. I take a long time to get to know people. Unless I stay in one place and get involved in some sort of community, I never get to know anybody and so I end up completely without social contact. And then I get lonely and depressed.
I think I like to have a sense of 'home' anyway, but loneliness is the main reason I couldn't handle an itinerant existence.