A Home for Tata
Talking with my toddler nephew about where I live is a humbling experience.
As my hunt for an apartment in Brooklyn ramps up, I continue to overthink the meaning of home and how and where to make one for myself, which led me to write the following essay. I’ve chosen not to put it behind a paywall with the hopes that more people will read and relate. Thanks for sharing, liking, commenting, and subscribing. Bon week-end. xx — Sara aka Tata
One night last spring, my almost-four-year-old nephew, Calvin, wanted to sleep in my bed. Only, it wasn’t my bed. Actually, it was really a couch—a pull-out couch, to be sure, and located “downstairs,” in what some might call a laundry room because it’s where the washer, dryer, and cleaning supplies are in my parents’ split-level suburban house on Long Island. This is where I slept for a few nights while he and my sister, who were visiting from California, stayed in my former childhood bedroom. I figured it’d be easier to sleep nearby, and certainly more fun, than commuting in and out from my sublet in Brooklyn.
“But I want to sleep with Tata,” he whined, as the little space between his brows furrowed, his Spiderman jammies all fresh and clean.
As the auntie who doesn’t have any kids of her own, the idea of sharing a bed with my nephew—who, yes, at my doing, calls me the colloquial French term for aunt—filled me with my own kind of pride and joy. I didn’t care if he’d end up turned around, toes to my nose, in the middle of the night. This is partly why I moved back to the U.S. after nine years abroad. This is why I was sprawled out on a mattress whose thickness could be compared to one of Ariana Grande’s thighs.
At first, my sister was reluctant. But she had a cold and was traveling solo this trip, without my brother-in-law and niece. I could almost see the lightbulb in her Mommy Brain go off, realizing this might be the only uninterrupted time she’d have for days.
“OK, sure,” she said. “Go sleep with Tata.”
He barely lasted to the end of the first book he asked me to read.
The same thing happened the second night, to which my sister winked at me and said, “See you in 10 minutes.”
Still, in my continued quest to define the meaning of home and where I want it to be, Calvin’s interest—and inevitable reluctance—to sleep somewhere new defined it in an instant: Home is constant. Home is comfort. Home is family. Home is what you know.
Over the past few years, formative ones for him to be sure, during which he’s gone from simply blinking at the camera to learning how to hold it, flip it, and press the red “button” to hang up on me unannounced, I have FaceTimed him from various time zones, geographical landscapes, and apartment rentals.
As a freelance travel writer, who was based in France when he was born, once he started talking, I began to field a variety of questions from him that I always struggled to answer:
“Where are you?”
“Is that your bed?”
“Where do you live?”
One morning last year, during a visit to his home in LA during which I stayed at an apartment I found on HomeExchange (because LA housing is like NY housing: not roomy and affordable enough to host guests), he said to me:
“I want to see your house.”
“Well, it’s not my house…” I started to reply.
I knew I shouldn’t try to explain. He’s a toddler. It’d only confuse him. Plus, his memory is better than Babar’s. One other time during a walk through his fig-treelined neighborhood, passing a different rental I’d stayed in, he said: “This is where Tata lives.”
Impressed, yes. But I still couldn’t help but correct him: “Not live, but…”
“But what?” he asked.
“Never mind,” I said, exasperated with his probes, but really, my inability to provide a straight answer. When people ask why I left Paris, I give them the short one: “It was just time.” It’s similar to the casually vague response I gave anyone who asked why I moved there in the first place: “Pourquoi pas?” Why not?
But the real reason, or one of them anyway, is that I was ready for more stability. I thought I could find that back in the States, which seems laughable now, seeing as nearly two years later, I am still seeking more steady employment, still schlepping bags to commute in and out from Long Island to NYC, and still wondering what and where comes next.
I’ve long maintained home is wherever I am, but these days I think it’s having a mailbox with my name on it, a couch and bed I purchased, and the croissant-shaped doormat from Anthropologie, as seemingly materialistic and unpoetic as that all may be considering my otherwise adventurous past. It’d surely be easier to explain to Calvin. What could he possibly think of his nomadic Tata, the one who sent him postcards from London and Morocco and still tries to teach him French words, but also sleeps on a pullout couch in his grandparents’ laundry room when he visits? She’s courageous! She’s independent! She’s worldly! She’s…homeless?
I’m being dramatic, of course. I fortunately have somewhere to sleep—many places, in fact, providing both a solution while also acting as a crutch, hence my putting pedal to the metal by (gulp) employing a real estate broker to help situate me. (Honestly? 10/10 recommend. She’s like part-therapist, part-scout.)
Over the past year, it’s been enlightening and fascinating to discover new neighborhoods and sample different thread count sheets and towel textures in fancy hotel rooms, West Village brownstones, and Chicago Victorians, where I’ve stayed for work or to help poop-scoop for other people’s pets. And, of course, it will always be an exciting privilege to travel the world on a whim.
But after a while, you want your own sheets and towels to return to, no matter the textures. (Though waffle towels, which I discovered during a dogsit, are a delight.) You get tired of packing and unpacking your rollie suitcase covered in stickers collected from around the globe, and tired of lugging it up subway stairs since Ubers are expensive, and not having a windbreaker because now it’s raining where you are, despite what the weather forecast said when you packed the day before. You are tired of always saving good boxes and bubble wrap for the inevitable next move. And you are certainly tired of wondering how you’re going to pay for any of it because the career you chose is imploding before your very eyes, even if it seemingly “afforded” you the ability to do much of it all in the first place!
One night last year, a few months after I moved back from Paris, where, at this point, he was aware I used to live, Calvin appeared on the rectangular screen in my hands. The questions started coming in fast and furious:
“Where are you?”
“Where is your bed?”
“Where is your house?”
“Well, I live at Uncle Jared’s house right now on Long Island near the beach,” I reminded him, imploring him to understand even if I still couldn’t; even if I’d chosen to slowly settle back into the States with a re-entry that was more of a tip-toe than a stomp. “But tonight I’m sleeping here.”
“Where’s here?” he asked.
I flipped the camera screen around at my friend’s fourth-floor walk-up in the West Village, which she shares with her husband and two kids, and showed him a wide set of cushions that were, admittedly, not a bed. He knew this immediately.
“Why are you sleeping on a couch?” he asked.
Because, Calvin, I wanted to say, I still haven’t found the home I’m looking for. But when I do, and I promise you I’m working on it, you can sleep over anytime.
I admire your grit! Coming back to the States was a bigger chew then you anticipated. But you've persevered. I know there are days you regret it. But close family and love will win out always. Wishing you a smoother road ahead. And, more time with Calvin et. al.
My nephews also think I am homeless! They’re not entirely wrong, but nomadic would sound nicer :) As much as I complain about being transient tho, the minute I’m asked to commit fully and financially to living in a specific place, I panic! Sending you good vibes on your search 🙏