Free?

I bought myself a Christmas gift. I always do. Not that I don't trust that anyone else will get me one, but, you never know and at least it is done.

It's a suitcase.

Two months ago, I left my job. Post-war Europe discovered that chain work in a factory was an oppression of the 19th century. I say that open space office work is an oppression of the 20th century, and that's behind us as well. We are free and we can certainly develop alternative modes of survival away from the photocopier and the coffee-machine.

So I have left office life and I am currently taking jobs here and there in the field. It's hard. But it's not boring. And there's no office meetings!

Now I am about to move to next step: life without a home. I am also about to leave my flat. Can we live without an address? This is what I am set up to discover. How will I be able to top-up my phone units without entering a post code on the online form? Will the French tax office be able to find me? They were already struggling with my changes of address and still occasionally send my tax invoices to Beirut. All these existential questions stir in my mind as I go to bed every night.

I called the gas supplying company and asked them how I would pay my last bill.

- Well, you read the meter on last day and call us and we'll send you the last bill.

- Er... the thing is, I am moving. Abroad. How can I get the bill?

- Depends. Where abroad are you moving to?

- Well, I am not sure yet.

Now this man thinks I am an old lady who is bored and calls to spend time and make conversation. He cannot actually believe that I am moving in 2 weeks time and I don't know where to.

This is why I need extra suitcases. I have to pack my things ready-to-go for any destination.Then, when I am heading off to some job or other, I simply have to pass by London, go to the storage place, open my locker and pick the right suitcase (based on climate/security/length of stay etc.). And off to Heathrow! It simply adds one item to standard pre-deployment procedure: visa; pedicure; and now, London storage.

So much has changed with the internet!  I can update my blog, communicate with friend and family through emails, Facebook, Skype... I can apply for jobs by email or, more and more, online. The only people who will miss my address are the visitors who have been staying at mine.

I look at my carpets, at the various items that have survived various disasters in my life - moving, separation, war: the salad bowl offered by my parents when they visited me in Geneva, the Cambodian carved piece of wood holding the Uzbek piece of silk; the Italian painting; the Iranian teapot; the Guinean bronze little statues... Once more I will have to pack them. Once more, I wonder where and when they will be unpacked. Under what latitude, what climate, what new life adventure.

I am already nostalgic of these objects and of the people and the places they remind me of. Can I be really free?