10 April 2012
I'm not quite sure how to describe it, so I'll just call it a habit. I can't remember how it started but I also don't seem to be able to stop it. Or want to stop it for that matter; I like taking sneak peaks in people's houses when I walk past them or I'm on the bus, in the evening after work. It serves an emotional purpose and a sense of curiosity about how people 'live' in their home. I've been away from mine for about three years
and I was never very sentimental about it - except Christmas time - but it seems to have preserved the memory and heightened the senses of the smaller parts that make up a memory: the smells, the sounds, the habits; all those moments of domestic comfort that feel personal in a way. Which is why I finding seeing other people in these moments very interesting. Especially in a city like Amsterdam, where the residents seem to be in a constant battle against curtains. Walking along the canals and looking through the windows, I can see little acts of domestic life: a group of old time friends, gathered around the Sunday lunch table, sharing stories they've heard and told a thousand times before. A woman cooking, alone in the kitchen, the tall window a black frame around her. A child laughing, playing with his grandfather. For them, it's just everyday; for me it's an observation exercise that evokes emotions and memories that may or may not be mine. Or it may just be a subconscious mechanism that tries to maintain inside me, the feeling of being home.
Domestic comfort • Opuss № I