Billie's Divination Den

The concept of home as a freeform is ridiculous – but during a university lecture this morning we were given five minutes on the concept of home. Which, for me, is something that has always been fluid and moving. It is not a place, and it is not always certain people. It is a mood, a feeling, a cup.

What is home, really? I have several homes. Right now, my home is this table, with the cat on the side tucking into the Maoam’s. It is not just this table, but this house. This house with three dogs, one cat, one rabbit, two gerbils, three children, Vikki, and me. Me. I am here, and my place is in this house with the coloured doors and guitar hooks on the walls holding up the blue bass given to me once by Annie. A bass I never learned to play but get told by Susannah that I must. I must so that she can play piano with me. Piano that Vikki taught her.  

My mother’s house is the place I go to for peace – when the screaming chaos of 101 Victoria St cancels out the SSRI’s and overwhelms my imagination into extinction. I put the key in the lock,( the key that always has been, and always will be mine no matter how many other addresses I live at) and walk in. I am greeted by a the akita-bear hybrid animal that is Keisha, and Jo Malone candles, these things familiar enough to make me pause, breathe, and assume the old habit of sitting in the wing chair next to my bookcase. Dad, as usual, is asleep on the armchair.

Sometimes, something weird happens, and I don’t know how to detach the head from the Henry hoover to unblock it of the rabbit hay, so I call my dad and he comes over- he always comes over to help. That home meets my other home and I start to wonder which is which. But they’re both home. Not the physical space, never the physical space, but them.