About homes

I come from a family of homemakers. Since I was young, I'd watch my parents pull out dandelions from our lawn, or move piles of scrap wood to our backyard. I begged them to take me out to the zoo or go shopping, but they insisted on housework instead. They poured their heart into our house, and in turn, the house started taking care of us. In the winter, a fireplace could provide us warmth and light. And in the summer, I stayed dry watching rain while eating tomatoes grown in our backyard. It was a quiet, but immensely fulfilling childhood.

It's easy to become ignorant of all this when it has surrounded you your entire life. For the first eighteen years of my existence, Home was tied to the one place. It was a single location — a coordinate I could type in and get directions to on my phone. But once I moved out for college, the word began drifting aimlessly without an anchor. It switched from being singular and plural. At another point it turned into an adjective, then back to a noun. I couldnt get directions to it no matter what I type into maps. It's become a word both filled with meaning, yet completely meaningless at the same time.

I've noticed that this has made talking about Home quite difficult. At college, Home picks itself up and moves 120 kilometres with me. But for my parents, their Home hasn't budged at all. They'd often ask where I was during our weekly phone calls, and when I say “home,” they become quite confused,

“You mean your dorm?” They'd say.

I'd solemnly nod with agreement, thinking quietly about how our ideas of Home will continue drifting further and further away.

Homes don’t last forever. They live inside of you, slowly becoming a smaller piece of that whole as time goes by. I’m scared that one day, these pieces shrink so much that I forget them entirely, so I started taking photos to help me remember. And as the collection grew, I started organizing them into this website.

I hope you’ll enjoy these parts of me as much as I did growing up in them