It's pretty physically unsettling, living life on a visa.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Living abroad has heightened my interest in how foreigners regard the strange places we encounter.
Having to travel so much plays havoc with your personal life.
As someone who works and travels as much, you could feel... A bit rootless?
I know what it's like when you are a refugee, living on the mercy of others and having to adjust.
I'm always intrigued when you are travelling through a place and there is somebody who has lived there and done the same job for years.
Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love because suddenly, all your senses are at the setting marked 'on.' Suddenly, you're alert to the secret patterns of the world.
You discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to see its car-ness, and you're like an immigrant to your own world. You don't have to travel to encounter weirdness. You wake up to it.
I live quite an unsettled life.
People think that every day we pass monumental legislation. Oftentimes, the most important thing that you have done that day is help a family with a visa.
An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home... a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance.