The wanderer and the lair (original) (raw)
footpad 😊thoughtful
February 11 2008, 11:23
Aki and I have a real problem.
We always knew we'd have problems, of course. Any meaningful relationship does. The problem I most anticipated was that of tidiness. In fact that hasn't been much of a problem: I got messier, Aki got tidier, and the house has maintained exactly the same average level of not-quite-squalor. I still turn foul-tempered when I catch him storing his mulled wine in the crockery shelves, but on the whole it's turned out not to be a real problem.
No, real problems are the ones that catch you off-guard and have no fundamental solution, and now we find we have one of those.
I've already mentioned that I have an offer of a job in Zurich.
The problem is that Aki likes to set down roots, to establish a territory where he knows the sunny spots and the good hunting sites, to dig a comfortable den with a large supply of gnawable bones. I like to wander, for the appeal of the new and sometimes just for wandering's sake. I like to feel that I have little enough stuff that I can move easily and instantly, when and where the impulse takes me. I like Recklinghausen, I really do, but Zurich's _different_—a familiar sort of different, to be sure, but still a change. New job, new home, new routine, different scenery, different woods to run with Mischa in. I'm hungry to go, while Aki's resolved to stay.
So that's our difference, and that's our real problem. Aki is by nature a settler. I'm not and possibly never will be.
Now what?