Souls created for eternity can only be satisfied by eternity.
Her new room was a single, small room of her own. There was nothing in it yet but a bed in front of the window and a closet next to it. But she could already imagine how it would look.
It would be different from her previous rooms. This time, she wanted white furniture. While the closet was already white, it should be easy to get the rest to match. A white bedside table, white curtains and a soft, white carpet in the middle. “Would the white color get dirty a lot?” she thought suddenly.
She wanted to decorate her room the way she couldn’t before in the shared or pre-furnished houses. Besides, maybe a white room could brighten her dimmed world. When she opened her eyes in the morning, the brightness might fill her with light and hope.
Yes… If the room got dusty, she would wipe it. She would be careful not to spill anything, and if she did, she would clean it up. She wasn’t a little kid! Didn’t she deserve a brilliant white room, decorated as she wanted?
She had left her suitcases by the door for now. She was going to unpack tomorrow, after looking for some affordable furniture. The room got a lot of sun. She could look for some plants too while she was out. How happy it would make her if she could grow some flowers again. She missed her plants that she looked after as if they were her babies. Was her old neighbor taking good care of them? He had promised to carefully follow the notes she had written. When she got the chance to connect to the Internet she would ask him for a photo, she reminded herself.
Of course she wasn’t completely alone in this place she had arrived. There were people who would come right away if she asked for help even if they didn’t live close by. Still, it was hard for her to leave everyone she knew far away, as if she was closing an old photo album. It was as if with every move, she completed another album, saying, “These are the memories of my high school years, this is the album of last year, and those are the happiest years of my childhood …” and opened the cover of a new one.
House, home, no matter what she called the place she lived, at some point they had all become temporary in her eyes. Was it this hard for everyone to feel like they belonged? Did everyone feel like a stranger buying bread, walking in the park, did they take every step anxiously like her? Could she ever find a place where she could hold onto tightly, like a baby holds onto a pacifier, and never have to let go again?
There was a knock on the door. Upon opening the door, she found no one present. However, upon scanning the floor, she noticed a package of chocolates with a piece of paper lying underneath. She bent down to pick them up. “Welcome to our house!” was written on the paper in big, colorful letters. She heard childish laughter from the far end of the corridor and smiled. Without closing the door she went to her kitchenette, took out a box of ice cream from the fridge. Found a napkin and a pen and wrote “Thank you,” on it. She added a heart and a smiley face and left the napkin on her doorstep along with the ice cream.
She heard the approaching steps and the excited voices of the children. Smiling to herself, she began eating the chocolate as she walked to her room.
One common thing she noticed wherever she went was the kindness of the people. From the elderly who opened a conversation on the bus and suggested places to visit, to the staff who gave her a library card even if she didn’t have the necessary documents, people showed their hearts full of love and compassion in unexpected moments. Somehow, her prayers were answered at the times she felt the most alone and defenseless.
Her friends used to call her “Traveler!” because she flew from place to place like a nomadic bird. Of course, she saw the benefits of seeing so many places and people, of gaining different experiences, but she sometimes dreamed of the days when she would put down her roots and settle down like a tree. She just needed to find her permanent address.
For now, she would continue to search, until the day she could let her roots grow. While arranging her little decorations on the windowpane, she put aside a place for the plants she was going to buy. No matter how small, she realized that everywhere she went, she reserved a corner of life for herself. Not everything was bright, but it was easier to understand the value of light and focus on it in the dark. It was easier to understand the eternal when you were among the transitory. But it was in her nature to want an order, a permanence in her life. Humans lived everywhere in the world, but she would continue to pray hoping for the days she could settle in a place where she felt she belonged and see herself as a person of that place.
“It is He Who has made the earth a bed (comfortable, couch-like floor) for you, and the sky a canopy.” (Al-Baqara, 2:22).
