Waiting For A Story

I have been away on vacation and happy to be home again. Home is a state of mind as much as it is the physical space we live in. Wherever I am, I try to create a home away from home, where I am at ease and comfortable with the space which l shall call home for whatever length of time. What I have noticed though, is that it is more of a feeling sense that has nothing to do with where I am.  I saw a film at the art gallery by the artist Fiona Tan called, A Lapse Of Memory. It portrays an elderly man living in a home in a manner totally incongruent to his surroundings. The images set in motion a contemplation on the nature of reality, how we represent ourselves and how others interpret what they think we are about.

Henry lives like a solitary vagrant, sleeping on the floor dressed in rags. He is unattached to his surroundings, an abandoned palace full of art and furnishings of an opulent period in oriental decor, maybe eighteenth century China and Japan. His  morning rituals of tai chi and  a tea ceremony, speak of earlier life experiences in which he has encountered Asian culture. The narrator constructs two possible life stories that Henry may have lived which brought him to his present circumstances.

The artist portrays on film, what we do in our minds when we meet people we do not know. The film also stirs our imagination of what life can look like when we have no stories to hold on to, no continuity of a personality as in the case of a lapse in memory. On the wall outside the presentation, it reads, “Henry is waiting for a story he can make his home.” Aren’t we like that? We move from one job to another, one town to another, one relationship to another, looking for a place to call home? We create a personal narrative that makes us feel more like we belong, more like who we are deep inside. We are looking for home, through finding a place, a lifestyle that feels like home. We even do it for other people.  We may come to some conclusion about the people we meet,  from their outer appearances and how they live. We look for the similarities, are they like us? We feel comfortable with people more like ourselves. We are always waiting to come home.

And what about Henry? Maybe he is not experiencing a lapse in memory. Perhaps he chooses to live like he does because he is more comfortable that way, than living the story that his surroundings suggest. Maybe he is aware of his surroundings and still lives as he does, drawing sustenance from his spiritual morning rituals, his simple mealtimes, his solitary existence. Maybe it is more real to him than the previous stories he lived.

“Henry is waiting for a story he can make his home.” These words are the timeless lament of the spiritual seeker until she realizes that home is a state of mind. No matter how many stories we invent for ourselves in this life, until we find that sense of being at home and at ease in ourselves, we will have that sense of waiting. Waiting for something to happen on the outside that will sweep us off our feet and bring us home. The old adage, “Home is where the heart is,” is good spiritual advice. No more would we be waiting, no more looking for a story from our surroundings in which we find our true home, for that can only be found on the journey of looking within.