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… for here is Felipe’s traveling gift, his superpower, the secret weapon that renders him peerless: He can create a familiar habitat of reassuringly boring everyday practices for himself anyplace, if you just let him stay in one spot.
- Elizabeth Gilbert, of her Brazilian lover Felipe, from ‘Committed’

After months of endless travel, I’ve definitely felt the need to find a nest.  Camping through Africa, hostel hopping through Italy, budget travel through Asia – all of it took a toll.   Long term, high energy, country-hopping gets old.  After a while, each city starts to feel the same: crowded, hectic, modern.  It stops being fun when you fail to see the magic.  This is why I stopped trying to tick countries off my long list and instead spent weeks at a time in certain cities.  I spent three weeks in Bali in a small cottage in the rice fields.  We played house in Vancouver for nearly a month. And now I’m here in Buenos Aires until mid June.  Sometimes, it takes more than a few pictures, dinners and cab rides to find the soul of a place.  And travel where I can to find the soul of a place has become more important to me.

During my early weeks here in Buenos Aires, before I began to get a grasp of the language, I found myself feeling completely isolated.  We’d walk by coffee shops full of people, gathered for afternoon tea and I’d long for a group of friends to call my own with whom I could socialize over coffee with.  Sometimes home feels so very far away.

But, like a hermit crab, I’ve learned to create a home wherever I happen to land.  Immediately I unpack, claim drawer and closet space, find a cup to hold my toothbrush, fill a bowl full of fresh fruits, search for a favourite music station, buy plants that need watering.  I don’t just stay somewhere.  I move in.

And this phenomenon of being able to take any place – a hotel room, an apartment, a tent – and make of it a comfortable and familiar home, is an amazing thing.  Human beings are so adaptable and often I forget just how easy it is to find contentment in a place.  I’ve agonized over which city I should choose next, where I’d like to live, what kind of apartment I’d like to rent, what neighbourhood would suit my lifestyle.  But then I realize that the daunting details don’t matter so much.  What matters are a few simple things:

• The knowledge that nothing is permanent, that all things are temporary, that every moment is an opportunity to take in the best that any place or person has to offer.

• The knowledge that love is not bound by place or time, and that the people most important to me are just a phone call away.  Love reaches out and gives infinitely.

• The knowledge that buildings, rooms, houses are just things.  They are hollow spaces that become significant only when we add elements of life and love: a bundle of flowers, a home-cooked meal, a favourite book.

• The knowledge that the newness, the learning, the discomfort and the joy – all of it – are blessings that can’t be taken for granted.  I am here, I am now, this is where I belong.

Last night, fresh after a rain shower, we bought giant daises from a street vendor on our walk home from Spanish school.  They lean in a giant glass vase on the living room table.  Fresh flowers.  Another small thing that makes a big difference in the life of a hermit crab.

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