The Absence of Presence

Someone said to me this week ; 

“A home is merely a transient space where the people you love come and go.” 

Oftentimes many mistake houses for homes. A house is four walls, a floor, and a roof. Logically, there is nothing special about a structure that provides shelter but everyone remembers the house or houses they grew up in. They remember it because in some form or the other this is where they were first loved and this is where they learned how to love.

The philosophy of phenomenology, which inquires and investigates the meaning of pre-reflective and lived experiences, when applied to the object, the house or architectural spaces has an instantaneous tendency to re-create or find the familiar. Our unconscious mind finds a home everywhere we go and yet our conscious mind rejects this as it isn’t exactly the same.

Somewhere along the line we forget what it looked like and focus on what it felt like. You fill your home with your futures, tomorrows and dreams.

A dream is a thought
From an idea that sought
To make us think
Of all the things
We’ve never done.
“But it could be fun,”
Whispers the Dream in our ear.

So we start
With sleepless nights
And endless lists
Just searching for the things
That can be done.
And as we break
Our backs and bones
We build the walls
Made of bricks

Marked as
‘Dreams’.

Until one day we stand
In front of a house
So different from a list
We first thought out.
But somewhere inside
You can remember
The idea of the thought
That was just a dream,
and yet now it’s not.

A house can be filled with dreams, it can be a home and yet it can also be a prison. What we don’t seem to realise is by giving meaning; positive or negative, we allow four walls, a floor, and a roof to mean more than the people who made us feel like that in the first place. Sometimes you wish it was just four walls with no meaning to trap you in its abyss of loss.  What I find strange is that love is something, when talked about philosophically or logically, becomes somewhat like a formal over-analytical dissected monologue discussing at least 13 different perspectives but never describing what it actually means. Why does no one seem to talk about love and home in the way it actually feels?

When I think of Home, I think of India and I feel my heart flutter a little bit. Sometimes when I am traveling in England and I think of home, I think of Leeds but more because it is filled with the people I love and it is familiar and close by. When I think of a house that made me feel at home I remember my grandad’s house.

Imagine paradise. Now imagine a green paradise with trees as tall as the sky and seas of green in every direction you look. You can smell the peace and the calm tranquility. There is no Chaos here but there is no human order either. You are not in control you are merely allowed to be a keen, humble observer.  The only hidden power is the Sky herself, and when she cries you stop and you watch. When she cries, all the trees begin to whisper to themselves. The clouds gather in a big grey blanket and try to embrace her. Everything below her bows their head and for one moment they are all silent. Even the Earth tries to calm her and releases his best aroma but it only makes her weep more. And as she howls, the heavens open and she is ablaze with thunder and lightning.

And you watch because this is Home. This land, this house, this memory, this smell, this awe-struck wonderment with which you stand on the edge of your grandfather’s portico stood on top of a railing at the age of 6, wearing a red tunic watching patiently with reverence- This moment.

In this moment you find a love you will never replace and you find home, forever.

Backyard Adventures
Kanjirapally, Kerala/India