In the essay collection, Finding the Trapdoor, the writer Adam Hochschild describes the experiences of a man, Jan Yoors, who lived the life of a gypsy for most of his life. Yoors’ experiences, including working for the Resistance in France during WW2. This was an era of great peril for anyone who wanted to live a free life governed by individual conscience, not answering to a Fascist-controlled state.
Hochschild finds Yoors many years later living in a brownstone in Washington Square, NYC. Although the old gypsy is still in touch with the global network of wandering tribes, he has settled down with his daughter in a house chock full of tapestries. The contrast between this sedentary existence and his former nomadic world is stark. It is both sweet and sad at the same time.
“(G)ypsy at rest” imagines an old man now confined to mostly sitting in a chair in a large house in England. He still travels, but now only in his mind as he goes back in time through memory.
