I have been reading ‘On ( writing) families
Autoethnographies of presence and absence, love and loss’
Jonathan Wyatt and Tony E Adams
(Eds) Sense Rotterdam 2014 as part of my research into what home means to me
Katrina Douglas has written a multilayered account of a summer with her mum. Page 105-114
She says” there will plenty of time to be at home when you are old”
Douglas leaves a golf tournament and goes home, her mother was very pleased to see her and didn’t ask her any questions
Word associations/ brain storming,
Home is a place to go to if you are miserable
Do you need blood relations/ relatives? My Dad, is my stepdad, home is not quite the same as before my Mum died, but I know I will always be welcome.
Both sets of our parents have moved out of ‘the family home’ as have Jon and I. I know my daughter found it very difficult as a concept initially when we moved up to Edinburgh. I will have to ask here what it feels like now, a year on.
When Jon’s Parents moved our son was small and I remember him wandering around their house saying good bye to objects, like the swimming pool and the patio, where he had played .
Douglas continues that at home multidimensional identities of hers were able to develop including – golf pro, singer, fruit picker, tea drinker and cake eater.
And on the golf course ( when she was miserable) something was missing from her body that only going home would fill.
When Jon was away and I was home alone, this did not apply, I wonder if Douglas’ holes would have been filled by an empty home?
I have multidimensional identities, I think I don’t have to be at home for them to develop. Teacher is definitely ‘out there’. She feels like someone who is switched off when I get home.
Maybe I picked her up through observing my mother the primary head teacher? However, after my primary education I rarely saw Mum the teacher in action. I saw ‘ill at the end of term’, ‘tired at the end of the day’,’ sitting on the sofa reading’ gardener, sewing Mum, decorator and coking Mum etc. All who have definitely influenced me and have a place ‘at home’ with me .
‘Sitting at the table looking out’ is alien me, but becoming a nice habit
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