I'm at my mom's house. I've been calling this place HOME (capital letters) for the past several years since she moved here from another flat around the corner. It's warm and has a big picture window with a large ficus standing guard.
It's been an indoor Christmas. Lots of food, lots of sitting, lots of laughing. This morning the sun was shining so brightly and the cars on the street were so beautifully frosted that I had to go out. On the high street I looked into the window of a local estate agent and saw the house my mother lives in with the word "Sold" written across it. My mom rents.
The area mom lives in (for now) is full of redbrick terraces of varying sizes, most of which have a small front room with a picture window. Walking back I saw Christmas trees and matte paint, dining tables and pianos. They mark this place out as being different to the parts of London in which I grew up, they also mark this place as somewhere I want my mom to live. If her home is insecure, I feel insecure.
What is home? I mean what is HOME? For me it is a complex concept. I have lived in many houses, not all of them so secure. Now, the home my mother will leave is where I want, not to live, but to be from.
I am thinking so much about what it means to belong in a particular place. Is it like the frail and passionate Mrs. Wilcox says in Howards End?
Is it the same sentiment as not being able to move a family without exhuming the skulls of your ancestors:
The Heroes' journey ends where it began: at home. The female version (which The Handless Maiden embodies) ends somewhere more integrated than our first home. It matures it.
I don't know how all this relates to how I feel about my mom moving. It really isn't my business especially since the house she is leaving isn't one I ever lived in. I still feel it though. Until she is settled and comfortable, I won't feel settled or comfortable.
The twenty-four hour walk that will be the focus of the next stage of the project is somehow my way of wrestling with the concept of HOME. The word is still bitter-sweet for me. I wonder what I will feel when it is over?
(Note: this post was written over the Christmas and New Year period)
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| Richard Redgrave - The Emigrants' Last Sight of Home |
The area mom lives in (for now) is full of redbrick terraces of varying sizes, most of which have a small front room with a picture window. Walking back I saw Christmas trees and matte paint, dining tables and pianos. They mark this place out as being different to the parts of London in which I grew up, they also mark this place as somewhere I want my mom to live. If her home is insecure, I feel insecure.
What is home? I mean what is HOME? For me it is a complex concept. I have lived in many houses, not all of them so secure. Now, the home my mother will leave is where I want, not to live, but to be from.
I am thinking so much about what it means to belong in a particular place. Is it like the frail and passionate Mrs. Wilcox says in Howards End?
To be parted from your house, your father's house it oughtn't to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather die than Oh, poor girls! Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn't die in the room where they were born?The place where I was born has been converted into flats bearing its name, but none of the structure remains.
Is it the same sentiment as not being able to move a family without exhuming the skulls of your ancestors:
"This is important because the people must not lose their contact with their ancestors. In their distant places of abode their ancestors must continue to keep an eye on them and guide them." Credo Mutwa, Indaba, My Children: African tribal history, legends customs and religious beliefs.What have I missed by not belonging somewhere? Maybe nothing.
The Heroes' journey ends where it began: at home. The female version (which The Handless Maiden embodies) ends somewhere more integrated than our first home. It matures it.
I don't know how all this relates to how I feel about my mom moving. It really isn't my business especially since the house she is leaving isn't one I ever lived in. I still feel it though. Until she is settled and comfortable, I won't feel settled or comfortable.
The twenty-four hour walk that will be the focus of the next stage of the project is somehow my way of wrestling with the concept of HOME. The word is still bitter-sweet for me. I wonder what I will feel when it is over?
(Note: this post was written over the Christmas and New Year period)
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