Text and photography by Patrick La Roque
When we're kids, home is a haven, our entire universe within a single space. Later, home falls into a state of flux, until we decide to settle and build again, on our own; wherever we may land. It remains fragile, always, and for some even impossible—a hopeless dream in a fog of war or hunger or loss. Sometimes it stays transient, relying only on a few people around us in order to exist. Maybe nothing more than a state of mind.
The home I knew as a boy is being erased one book, one painting, one table or chair at a time. Erased like our mom's grasp on the present—liker her tortured soul. This morning I drove through hard torrential rain, half-dazed and weary, on my way to a memory on the verge of collapsing. Neighbours have passed away, replaced by strangers. Our street has grown tendrils, the fields we used to hide in paved over, the forest in our backyard long gone.
The smells still linger though: of old childhood and reprimands and board games on a Sunday afternoon. Of curses and strange sleepless nights, holidays and love and death. Solitude.
Maybe it's March digging its wet claws into my soul —I don't know. But it’s clear my home has shifted and my family lies elsewhere. This house is little more than nostalgia now and it hurts a little, like losing part of yourself to something you can’t control.
It’s just a frame—waiting to capture someone else’s memories.
