User:Luni/Reading, writing, research /Session 4

Exploring a relevant question

What is home to me?

Freewriting :

“I have things inside me that I want to get out – I think they are buildings. Large glass structures, steel bolted. I am floating.”

Material Home / House / Space

My first memory of Home brings me back to the House I grew up with. A weirdly shaped house with huge stairs leading to the creation of my father’s – a small, cozy attic with a visible, massive roof joists. Thinking about it I can’t help it but remember the smell – smell of my father’s perfume in the morning, and in the evening - smell of the burning wood and often a smell of the smoke coming out of the fireplace. I remember the loud, very specific sound that the stairs made when somebody was climbing up to our attic. This memory of the sound of the stairs always brings me back to the recurring nightmare I used to often have as a kid – the sound of the stairs in the dream was exaggerated – it was made by our two wolfhounds who were running up the stars. Perhaps to protect me from those, who are waiting for me in the kitchen – babaušiai. Babaušiai are kind of a large creatures (size of a house), shaped like an oval, vertical clouds, totally black colored. They were coming from the forest, from the forest that I always saw through the window of my room. I think they were coming to get me, and I always tried to call my mother to help me, but I could never make any sound since it felt like my throat is full of sand.

HOME IS A PLACE

Home as a Feeling

All the houses and homes I used to have in my life taught me all these different feelings made me understand what does it mean to feel at home.

HOME IS A FEELING, NOT A PLACE

Me as a Home

I carry all the memories of my previous houses, moods, people, I know what it means and what do I need to feel at home. I carry it all with me. I carry many houses inside of me – my first house, my father’s house, all the houses of mine and my mothers, my first house of my own. I bring them everywhere with me and they make me feel at home at all the new homes.

I AM A PLACE FULL OF FEELINGS

PLACE + FEELING = ME = HOME