The back was boarded off from the rest of the house for weeks. In the last months of 2020, builders were pulling down walls in my home. For some it has been a refuge, for others a torment, but we have all, in some way, been confronted by where we spend our days. The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard called the house a “psychic state,” stitching together the thoughts, dreams, and memories from which our lives are braided. During times of lockdown, the pandemic has meant repurposing rooms, with kitchens converted into classrooms and bedrooms into offices others have been sunk in silence, empty of the usual traffic of friends and relations. Home is something we’ve all had to think about differently in these weightless days. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” wrote Annie Dillard, and the houses we spend them in record it all. It’s the small moments they remember: the hollow at the turn of the stair, the scratches around the keyhole, or wood darkened by touch. Life’s big occasions-the triumphs and heartbreak-drift through like smoke, leaving barely a trace. David Farrier reflects on the immense burden of materials that mark our place on Earth.Īll houses have memory.
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