Leaving Home
Leaving Home is about belonging and loss, an empty house, and the indelible watermark of family.
I was four when my parents bought an old house that had once served as the Cottage Hospital for the village. Amid a hoard, there were bed pans and exotic bottles hinting of potions and poison. A high-backed, wicker wheelchair quickly became a carnival ride to be fought over. The door to my parents’ bedroom was taller than the rest, reportedly, to accommodate surgical equipment. I envisioned all the births and deaths, trauma and celebrations that happened there. When my father renovated the bathroom, he found a Book of Psalms in the wall that belonged to the builder. All this stoked my imagination about histories and hidden things awaiting discovery.
I’ve always been attracted to the invisible curtain separating the physical world from the world of the dead. The making of these images was my vigil in the lead up to my mother’s death. The curtain felt thinner.
A chronological middle child of six, solitude was a concept I could not conceive of. In a once-teeming house, I haunted rooms where being alone had never been possible. I clung to the light and space, the unrevealed stories of generations. I imprinted on the walls that held my family and memories. I secured my place in the pantheon of ghosts who came before and those who will come after. I made my peace.
The urge to grasp the ephemeral in the face of dissolution is fraught with guilt and reverence. We carry on — a testament to love, loss and the refuge of home.
