This isn't so much a debate on materialism- although the possessing of objects comes into play- but a question of homeyness, of the physical expression of the occupant. It's also not a debate on cleanliness. My space is just as much mine when it's messy as when it's clean.
When I was a freshman in college two of my friends and I signed a lease for an apartment. The housing market in Ithaca is one of the strangest markets imaginable- we were signing a lease before Thanksgiving for an apartment we wouldn't move into until August (in ITHACA). What that did mean though is that my friends and I had nearly a year to plan our move: to claim rooms, buy furniture, dishes, and accessories. We had a year to decorate and you can be sure we used it. When we moved in, up went a new shower curtain emblazoned with sayings like 'naked and happy' and 'i'm so cute'. Up went christmas lights, dry-erase boards on the doors and even a poster of a naked chick over the toilet. We threw a Playboy Bunny blanket on the couch, liquor bottles on the mantle, and a brand new teapot on the stove.
It certainly wasn't classy, but it definitely felt like home. Before I even slept the first night in my room tapestries hung on the walls, pictures were FunTac-ed above my desk, and Keith Haring's baby crawled along next to my closet. The same scene was repeated again the following year, when my roommates moved out and two new girls moved in. Out went the hammock (stolen form the fraternity next door) and the pump bottle of Jagger on the mantle; in came new pots and pans, posters, and stuff in general.
One of my new roommates had a problem with cleaning; she never did it. One of my fondest memories from that year was waking up one morning to find my one roommate piling all of the other girl's dirty dishes into a pile on her bed. All the shit I took for it later was well worth the amusement.
But back to nesting...
When I moved into my second apartment with roommate number 6 we also started planning early. We wrote lists, made plans, divided up 'who was bringing what' so that we would have a fully stocked apartment from day one. I already had almost everything I really need from two years of apartment living (and one year in a dorm), but number 6 went all out. He showed up with everything from a flat-screen tv to a dining room table that seated 8. We repainted the apartment, sanded and waxed the floors, hung curtains, shampooed the carpet. We siliconed the rotting wood in the bathroom, re-caulked, and scrubbed. When we were all done, we couldn't help but feel like we were home.
I have been known to carry photos if I know I'm going to be away for a few weeks. I can't imagine not injecting at least some of myself in any space I inhabit. Away at camp my friends and I would got to Pen State's school store and buy push-pins, scissors and magazines, cut them up and adorn our dorm rooms for the week we'd be there.
On the other side of the coin, the nomads reign. The people who can live for a year in an apartment without hanging up a poster, who are content to claim nothing of their own. While the Buddhist side of me admires that lack of attachment I also find something unsettling about it. (It also reminds me of the idea that is it much easier to live a spiritual life apart from the world than in it.) I don't like feeling transient in my own space. The current moment is all there is, so why not own my space. I don't want to think 'I'll only be here for a week/month/year, so why bother?'.
The 'why' is precisely because I will be here for a week/month/year.
I'm here now.
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