The Hermit Crab Philosophy
Obsessing over change in pursuit of permanence
In every story I write, you will find a scene in which the protagonist moves somewhere new.
Someone will move in to a new flat, set their sights on a different country, or leave home for the first time. It’s the most consistent thing about my writing, and it’s one of my favourite things to come across in the books and media I consume. I’m starved for homes.
I used to think it came from living in the same house for the decade leading up to university, but I’m in my mid-twenties now and since leaving my home town I’ve moved seven times in the past seven years (it’s not as neat as it sounds - I’ve spent months in some places and years in others). I’ve even moved bedrooms within those houses. I can’t get enough of it. As a child, I was a firm believer in the ‘new room new me’ school of thought, and knew that moving was a symbol of reinvention. As a teen, I spent years counting down the hours until I could leave, and ever since then I have been seemingly unable to find what I’m looking for. Every new place I go, there’s some crucial thing missing, or the spiders are too big (and too goddamn determined), or the lease ends, or my friends leave.
I love the change of movement. I love the packing and the newness and the potential and the excitement. But more than that, I love the idea of home. Throughout my entire life, in the moments that I feel most desperate I find myself thinking how badly I want to go home. It’s never been the place that I live, and I don’t know where or how to find it. For a while I thought I’d found it living with a partner in Wellington, but when he broke things off I couldn’t afford to stay by myself, and having to leave the home I’d built hurt just as badly as the breakup. But in truth we’d only been there a few months, and I think that if we’d stayed longer then I would have started to feel the irresistible pull of leaving. I found it again for three years, living with three of the women I love most in this world, but life comes for us all and one by one they left - traveling or building their careers. I was the last to leave, and it hurt my heart to do so, but it wasn’t home without them.
Now I’m feeling that pull again. My shell is too tight. I don’t know where this restlessness comes from - am I sick of myself? Do I crave the change? Is it just because I found ants in the bath yesterday and everything is landlord grey? Will I spend my whole life haunted by the phantom of a home? I see it out of the corner of my eye and I obsess over the idea of change in pursuit of permanence - of a place or version of myself I won’t need to outrun. Where I will at last settle inside my skin and know that I am home.
Or maybe I just like moving.
B.
Continue Reading:
I keep reading this piece over and over. It makes my heart clench, in a bittersweet way. I just read it out loud to Mum and Dad, and we all agreed there’s something so deeply human about the hermit crab philosophy. The piece wraps in on itself, just like a hermit crab’s shell, in this never-ending question of home ❤️❤️❤️ I’m so glad you gift us with your writing, Bethy xxx