Tinged with familiarity

A ‘second home’ makes one think of a villa abroad or a tumbledown cottage on the coast. It suggests something additional – a surplus property or space. But although I’ve always thought of my grandma’s flat as a second home, it does not fit those criteria. Instead it has been a well known and appreciated ‘home from home’ visited since childhood; tinged with familiarity. I’ve always known on entering exactly how the bubble lamp would peer over the table, how the paintings were arranged on the stairs, which shelves to turn to if I wanted to read a Penguin classic bound up in orange.

My dad and his late brother grew up there, and it has changed little since his younger years. The sixties' Saarinen furniture has seen out decades of growth, love, difficulties; those smooth white chairs sat on by everyone from toddlers to teenagers to grandparents. I probably used them to haul myself up when learning to walk. It is full of such stuff as memories are stored in, whether these are volumes on art from the V&A or photographs hanging in the bedrooms.

Soon the majority of items collected over the years are to be re-located. This is the last summer during which I'll be staying in the flat as it is, before everything is boxed up and my grandma moves elsewhere.

Sorting and sifting and changing and recycling are part of the human process. The Buddhist concept Anicca, roughly translated, suggests that all things are impermanent and always in flux. Accordingly, it is taught that suffering stems from desire. Probably true, but I doubt that I’ll ever detach myself from all the things I’ve coveted and acquired. My magpie instinct, inherited from my family, is too strong. However, that state of continual change described above can be true on a material level for many of us. We accumulate things then let them loose again. The contents of our houses change as we do, sometimes incrementally, sometimes drastically. I’ve been used to the interior of my grandma’s flat being a constant. But although the change will take some getting used to, it feels right.

Exploring how we deck out our personal spaces is a book-length topic, taking in history, geography, family, circumstance, culture, society, experience, class, taste and other facets. What we put in our cupboards (and indeed, how those cupboards are designed) is informed by all these factors, and consequently informs the casual observer of something about the person who owns them.

For example, my own room indicates that I read a lot and keep hold of far too many hats. But if  viewed when I was thirteen it would have been easier to glean that I loved Audrey Hepburn and was attempting to forge my identity by way of collaged canvases, fairy lights, inflatable chairs and a ridiculous quantity of gel pens. Our interests and focuses shift, clear-outs happen and the updates are ushered in. 

Photos taken by the lovely Fred Wilkinson whose other shoots and photography can be seen on his flickr. Big thanks to him. It was great to hear his reactions to my grandma's flat as I showed him around. I chose my clothes to match that late sixties/ early seventies colour scheme. Both dresses are vintage and both were very well chosen presents from my mum.

Finally, I'll be flagging this up again in my next post, but as most people already know, Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st, so I'd encourage anyone who hasn't done so already to follow me on Bloglovin'. There's a great article on IFB about how to transfer your RSS feeds over.