Distillery District, Love locks
It is strange to find commonality based on a topic that is so personal, and yet at our core we define our most sacred and cherished thoughts on the most basic of instincts and notions. Perhaps this is to do with the values of our society, or perhaps it’s kismet. There is a great deal of honour and privilege to be able to glance into the definition others have of home. It is the ability to paint the most vivid of images that allow for others to feel the home in question. To see the emotions and ideals that are invoked at the simple mention of the word, home.
We have tied the idea of home to our heart and the mind. To love and safety and notions that are often not tangible. We have defined our homes in our memories and the people who have occupied the rooms we have built in our minds and hearts. It is perhaps our bodies that are our homes as they are the places we are able to collect all these most important artifacts. They are the galleries that display and protect our fragments that create our road maps home.
As we all through our selected stories have defined our homes through memories, a selection of pin pointed events that allow for us all to find our way home. It is the love and relationships we have with the respective people and the ideals we have assigned to the lands that drive us. At every turn we have all chosen our homes from the emotions that are invoked, from the safety and love we have seemed, and the warm embrace the memories spring.
It is perhaps the love letter that are written to each persons respective home that serve as a reminder that with every bit of laughter and security we associate with home, we all have chipped walls, we hold our homes both as the place of love and compassion while also associating them with memories and emotions less savoury than love. It is the duality of home, it is the ability to create space for clashing ideas and emotions.
It is the ability to transport and travel back in time at the thought of home while remaining in the present. It is the idea of being far and yet suddenly being reminded of home. We, as a collective all have different upbringings, and backgrounds, we are at different stages of our lives, and yet we share a commonality, all too human. We defined our homes with love and family and friends, with memories and stories. That is the commonality I witnessed within the pieces written by Samantha, and Lenaya, Victoria, Laura, Grace, Magdalena, Cayla and Zac. Though each experience is vastly different, each definition of home has been connected more so to the notion and idea of home than a currently physical location. Though still connected to the land. It is perhaps that foundation of land that allows for the home to be built and nurtured into its present form. They tied their homes to their experiences, memories and emotions. To love and connections and struggles, They created road maps that allowed fro me to travel through their ideas while creating connections of my own.
That appears to be the power of homes.