Where you can go when you listen

Imagine this: a long dead relative, maybe one you never met, leaves behind a recording. The sound is of them having a cup of tea in silence. They perhaps, do not realise they are being recorded. The recording captures sounds like their teeth on the rim of the cup, a creak from an armchair, a breath.

I would give so much to have a recording like that, of my grandmother. I never met her though my family say I am like her reincarnation. I have one of her jackets and two photos of her (one of which is a photograph of a passport photo). I want to hear what she sounded like, just breathing or moving about.

Home

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.

Richard Redgrave - The Emigrants' Last Sight of Home

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.