A Theory of Perfect Places, With a Side of Real Estate and Truly Horrible Shellfish Humour
One rather astounding sight that demonstrates the many ways in which humanity extends beyond the human race is the housing queue that is formed by a group of hermit crabs looking to exchange their shells. A single crab looking to upgrade his living arrangements may come across a shell that is too large. Instead of deeming it unsuitable, and moving along on his jolly way, as I would have done if I had, for example, tried on too big a pair of shoes, the crab waits around the shell for other crabs to notice it and size it up. The group of hermit crabs eventually rounds up in size-order, creating an adorable shell-swapping circle, waiting for enough crabs to join in such that everyone has made a shellection that lets them boost their cubic footage. Only then do they all move in. As someone who’s been promising my friend I’ll go to her annual clothing swap for four years now, this made me feel mighty shellfish when I learned of it. Like some greedy crabitalist. I swear I’m not sorry about the puns. No need to get crabby about it.
Hermit crabs upgrade their homes regularly, but each time, it takes time and dedication to find a new shell to call home. Where is home, exactly?
I’d say I’ve read enough rules printed onto mugs and picture frames and embroidered onto pillows and handkerchiefs sold at funky local craft stores to be fairly certain whether I’ve found it. "Home is where the heart is." "Home is where love resides and friends are always welcome." "Home is where the wifi connects automatically." "Home is where the bra isn’t." I could make a home-finding checklist. Those who frequent internet-generous strip clubs (or any other magical braless and wifi-generous establishments) might find this one unsettling.
(Although, I'd venture to say that the original analogy we started with is just as disturbing if you were someone who either likes taking things really literally, or dates lots of med students.)
Homey?
For a better set of criteria outlining the characteristics that make a home that cozy place we tell ourselves is a good investment - your local real estate agent probably has a better one than mine. For instance, we all know that home is where you can stand in the kitchen with no pants on, eating cereal out of a mug with a measuring spoon, while belting out the three lines you know of a Taylor Swift song. Just wanted to make that clear, before we move on.
Now, I’ve gone three days without leaving my home because it was “Too bloody sunny out,” but shockingly, I’m not a hermit. Not a crab, I mean. As long as this girl has enough blood in her caffeine system, she's pretty good at being optimistic, cheery and not wanting to krill someone. (Oh, you thought we were done?) I don’t need to go looking for a home very often. But I do look for places. Places that are much harder to find than a place with heart, wifi, and where I can ditch my unmentionables. Rarer than a home. Places that are Perfect.
If you want to really make someone’s day, find a way to steal their computer and set the “cursor afterimage” setting to its very maximum. They’ll think of you most fondly when they realize that their screen is now laced with trails of the incredibly exciting of a little arrow. What if our daily motions left similar traces. Little hazy afterimages of our whereabouts as we rush around from work to leisure to obligation and tell ourselves we can differentiate the three. Hopefully it would at least be a tad less pixelated. Less annoying, certainly. Perhaps it would look like footsteps - little feet that slowly fade away.
When I was younger, I had fantasies of becoming Sacagawea. They say a good tracker can tell, by looking at a footprint, whether its maker was in a hurry, quite at peace, or dragging their feet. I wish I could be a blonde Shoshone, reading the emotions behind all of our foot-shaped cursor trails.
The invisible heavy prints of a just-fired employee trudging to the subway.The determined, hope-filled pounding of Nikes from a runner who feels on top of the world. The remnants of the urgent click of stilettos of a woman late for a date. Admittedly, I’m quite sure that if I tried to put my ear to the New York City sidewalk and listen to the footprints of the city, I’d get written off as one of those individuals that makes the city “special.” A few tourists might offer me a dollar. Some hipster might yell at me for “cultural appropriation.” In any case, I doubt it would go well. But these trails, lacking as they are in some drop-down “Settings” menu, seem real to me. Crisp and contrasting when we visit a place for the first time, building up in indiscriminate layers in the places we constantly rush around. The emotional trails we leave in the dust as we pass by in shoes that are probably more expensive and less durable than they could be.
Due to some miracle of nature, birds, fish, and butterflies that migrate are able to follow the same looped routes season after season. In a confession I’m not sure if I’m proud or ashamed of, I have more in common with breeding salmon than I’d like to admit. We all do. I don’t come in a can. I do, however, loop over my own trails hundreds, probably thousands of times. I hope I'm not alone in this, although I could be wrong - let minnow. We spend most of our days hightailing it between shockingly few locations. Home- Work- Home. Home- Work- Home. Home-Work-Grocery Store- Home. Home-Work-Liquor Store. Home-Work- Our Secretary's House. Sorry, uh...watching football?
We also spend the vast majority of our days in some emotional middle ground. Feeling “Meh.” “Mostly Satisfied” A solid B+. Like slightly milky tea. A grey zone of sorts, like the colour of the sidewalks we tread on, leaving layers and layers of very boring-to-read average footprints. Sacagawea would be disappointed. No dramatic dashes, snail-pace drags, or merry frolicks in new and exciting places. At least not for me. For all I know I’m surrounded by millions of exploration-loving emotional rollercoasters, but somehow I doubt that’s the case.
Maps are usually pretty simply coloured. Green is woodland, inhabited areas are some non exciting shade of tan or brown. Blue is water, (although most bodies of water I’m surrounded by are far from “Robin’s Egg Blue.”) But what if some places, some trails, some paths, some tiny spots could be coloured with emotion. With happiness. Whatever that looks like to you. Maybe throwing some “Mango Tango Orange”(if it’s in my box of crayons, why can’t it be in my life?) alongside a million grey sidewalks, glass buildings, and subway stations of whatever colour "Delays and Misery" is. What if you could have sidewalks where you’ve only walked feeling like you’re walking on air? What if you could have streets, avenues, park trails, subway platforms, fire-escapes that were “perfect?”
What if you could have sidewalks where you’ve only walked feeling like you’re walking on air? What if you could have streets, avenues, park trails, subway platforms, fire-escapes that were, in way “perfect?” I'm just posing a theory here - let's call it the "Perfect Place Theory," shall we? But I'm curious. What is a perfect place to you?
Or, you know, you could reach out to slap me for my shellfish puns. Just don't pull a mussel.
