my good friend, e, asked me to contribute to her final project. i'm more than thrilled to do so; E is an incredible friend, and i'd be happy to do anything for her, but even more than that, E's project is a lovely one. it's an art piece, centered around the concept of "home." i don't want to give away too much of what it is, so i'll just leave it at that.
i want to contribute - i intend to contribute - but: my concept of "home" is unstable, at best. in one part of my mind, home is unsafe, a place of danger and lies and deceit and abuse. but then, i think of the home i'm creating here, in northampton. the family i'm creating here. the love that fills the home space i'm slowly forging in this town, in what's become my town. my home town.
home is in the heart, yes, but it's not just centered around my heart. it's in the connections to the hearts of the women around me. it's in the hearts of the women i admire, the women i love.
home is, traditionally, a place of oppression. of familial shame and secrecy and silence.
bucking that tradition, creating a home that's a place of love and silence-breaking and openness and honesty, then? that makes "home" a place of feminism. that makes "home" a site of this revolution that we're working towards.
but even with all of this, all of this positivity surrounding my concept of "home," i'm torn. because even with this home i've created, this home that's actually made up of and centered around love, home is still also the place where all of this heart-pain originated. and so i feel as though i have to be honest about that, as well.
i guess my point is:
my sense of home is still very much in fragments.
fragmented into pieces of love and pieces of abuse.
how do i condense my fragmented self into a contribution for E's art project? can "home" be a conglomeration of fragments?
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