Holly O’Neil on “Home”

Holly O’Neil is an illustrator and creative sharing her time between London and her family home in Bahrain. Here, through beautiful words, illustrations and a recipe from her grandfather, she documents the plurality of her notion of home.

Upon leaving home it becomes a transient thing. It exists twice. For those of us lucky enough to have lived in one place our whole lives, home is a fog of memories. It is what you know and it is the reassured comfort of knowing. But, upon leaving and returning, home exists in a duality. Our sense of past and self does not diminish, and yet we are left wholly moved by the things that are not the same. Things inconsistent with the year four memory of the garden. The faucets have changed on the taps in the kitchen. The upstairs carpets have been replaced. Returning to moments in your timeline becomes an act of self harm or celebration. How can’t they see? Who didn’t realise that the carpet was perfect? The road didn’t need paving. My posters used to be cool. It is emotional mindfuck returning to these spaces. They exist twice and are intangible. You know them but they stop knowing you. Your mum now sits in another chair. It does not mean we cannot love this space - we can. As it was, as it is, as it will be in your head. Accepting that the faucets on the taps are both the ones you remember and the new ones.