NO FIXED ABODE

Housesitter and writer Rachel Morris explains how living a nomadic life has liberated her and led to a deeper level of self-discovery…

Housesitting has opened up a whole new world of experiences for Rachel Morris

‘It’s those we love who ground us’

In the past year, our homes have become our sanctuaries – and, yet, while many are reliant, both emotionally and physically, on bricks and mortar as their safe spaces, I am in my third year as a housesitter, and don’t have a home at all.

Even through the pandemic, I was needed: To care for an old cat so her owner could flee locked-down Paris. To tend a friend’s bonsai trees near the Eiffel Tower. Tropical plants in the Gers were left in my care while people made essential travel to Kenya. Rootlessness has long been part of my life. My family moved from Stockport to Canada when I was nine, and while I spent my 20s back in the UK, I went on to teach in South Korea, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. I grew used to reducing my worldly possessions to a couple of suitcases, and as the years passed, I came to love the weightlessness and simplicity of only having what I need and needing what I have. And so, when I decided to work for myself in my 50s, writing, editing, and making collage art, housesitting seemed like a liberating proposition. I rarely charge people to look after their homes, but I pay no rent and usually no bills. I have one small suitcase, found in Tokyo, that’s like a mini chest of drawers and doubles as a seat, a gorgeous and durable Everywhere Bag by Away, and a compact sling bag for my phone and other small necessities. There’s a teak folding screen sitting in a friend’s antiques shop in Thailand, made from old Indian shop doors, waiting for me to sell or reclaim it. But I own nothing more in all the world. I used to have things in storage but, gradually, I got rid of them. The first few days in someone else’s space can feel strange. But you quickly learn to bloom where you’re planted. All I have to do to feel at home is find something that works as a standing desk – a kitchen counter, usually – and set up my ipad. Each time I step into a new house, I feel like I’m starting afresh; it’s a chance to forget the missteps and missed opportunities of the past. There have been so many memorable moments. A Barcelona flat with a terrace and a view of the city. Long walks in rural France. Carting tiny chihuahuas to the park and back for a cool actress in Madrid. Okay, there was that time a wild boar chased me down a driveway in remote South West France, the snake by the pool, the house that leaked in a freak storm, but these things have taught me that I’m more resilient and resourceful than I could have ever imagined. Only once has a sit fallen through at short notice. Thankfully, dear friends took me in. That’s a key difference, I think, between my way of life and true homelessness. And with friends like that all over Europe, I never feel alone. Brexit and Covid-19 have prevented me from moving around Europe, so I’m returning to the UK, where I’ll sit until I find my own rented home. I might settle a little. Just a little. But I know my wandering mind will always be seeking new horizons. Life, I have learned, is transient. Changes will come, whether you seek them out or not. I did a sit in Devon to see my nearby dad in late 2019 – and he died two weeks later. Mum died eighteen days after that, then a friend, then another. The pandemic waves crashed, and I spent three months locked down in rural Provence. I couldn’t have survived that time without art, kindness and the internet. In the end, it’s those we love who ground us, not house deeds or furniture. The idea of having no fixed abode may feel daunting to some. It still does to me, sometimes. There was a time in my 40s when I told myself I should be married, have children, a house, a car. That I don’t have those things seemed a failure then, but has since become a source of great adventure; a blossoming. Sitting hasn’t made me a new person. Rather, each sit makes me more sure of who I am – a curious, creative individual, who values freedom and experience above materialism and permanence. In seeing many places, living many lives, I become a more enriched version of myself.