Identity and address
When pondering that deep question of ‘what defines the self?’ we might bring location into the mix. The land we grow up in, the shape of it, climate, trees and the such can shape our growing selves. We might think about our relationship with the soil, and the presence, or absence of the bones of our ancestors. There’s much scope for getting all poetic here.
What you probably won’t jump to thinking about, is the relationship between your postal address and your identity. Legally speaking, your post is a big part of your identity. Your credit rating, police checks, your contracts, and ability to access the wider world are all tied to the post. Your ability to vote in elections depends on an address, or a lot of wrangling, assuming you can find out how to do that. In some circumstance, a letter or two with your name and address on, constitute proof of identity. For most of us, most of the time, there’s no reason to give that a second thought.
It was only when we moved to the boat that this one really hit me. By having a care-of address rather than a letter box of my own, I was suddenly a bit marginalized. Extra hoops to jump through sometimes manifested. Lengthy explanations had to be given. No, we don’t live at the post office, we live on a boat. Fortunately, the lady running our post office was brilliant and really went out of her way to help us. For example, important paperwork allowing you to stay in the country can only be delivered to your postal address and your passport must be shown to get it, and no, they can’t give you a day or time. All manner of things I had taken for granted suddenly became tricky. We managed, but it was a lot of unwelcome hassle.
This is a common issue for boaters. I’m sure other travelling people must have the same problem, and for anyone who is homeless, it’s another problem to add to the many. It was an isolating and unnerving experience, and it left me feeling vulnerable and disenfranchised. With housing ever harder to afford, housing benefit being capped, wages not going up while rents and mortgages rise, ever more people are going to have to resort to unconventional living arrangements, for the short term and for some, probably longer. Cars, caravans, boats, yurts, couch surfing… there are all kinds of solutions that take you out of what is normal. There are, I gather, people in the UK who in desperation have resorted to living in caves. No postal address there. Where poverty gives rise to shanty towns, no formal addresses exist, and those at the margins are vulnerable indeed.
We don’t tend to think about legal identity as part of our personal identity unless we are pushed into a place where that’s an issue. It can come as a nasty shock. A person without paperwork struggles to legally exist as a person at all. I’m a Druid, author, daydreamer, wife, parent, cat-mother, activist, trouble maker… I am now a person who can apply to vote, a person who pays council tax and has something of an official existence. I didn’t notice those as being part of myself until I no longer had them. What else have I taken for granted? What else is more fragile and unreliable than I would wish to think?
