"Invisible Architecture and the Road Home"

"My childhood was full of confusions like these, almost willfully acquired, since I would never admit when I didn't understand something. Not just because I was afraid of looking stupid but because the natural order of things appeared to me to include dusty obscurities, intended to remain unclear."

Suzanne Berne, The Ghost at the Table

"I-77 / Lake Norman"© 2009
"Autumn Missed Subset"
from the Convenient Non-locality Series©

I.

I travel. I travel a lot. My excursions are, of course (and as is in keeping with the very nature of the course), bracketed by the leaving and the returning. You may find it ridiculous that I would even mention what appears to be such an obvious notion. But as I spiral away from my home, towards some destination (some destination that most certainly involves - at the very least - both the allure and the anxiety associated with the unknown), I feel the need to remain aware of the spiraling back. Such is the folding back upon that gives me my greatest sense of Home.

"Magnolias / Wendover & Randolph #6"© 2009
"Autumn Missed Subset"
from the Convenient Non-locality Series©

II.

I move. I have moved a lot. And while I have been an active (some might say driven or possessed or even obsessive) participant in the development and construction of each of the houses in which I have resided, the actualized physicality is a very small part of the defining qualities of Home (I would be remiss if I did not recognize here the amazing skill with which my wife Sheila, transforms each new domicile from a Shell of Possibilities into Our Home). Yes, plaster, brick and wood are components. But so are safety, comfort, love, memories of all types: envelopment.

"#9, Canopy Portal"© 2009
"Autumn Missed Subset"
from the Convenient Non-locality Series©

III.

But how many times do I breeze through the heart and hearth of my Home as if it were some arbitrary pasture along the Pennsylvania interstate? Familiar in content, but not fully explored?
How often do I live in my Home as if I were a child, or a guest, or a scripted actor?

Scientists speculate that we only know about a mere fraction of the Matter comprising the Universe (and given the transient nature of knowledge itself as it traverses and unravels the strings and mysteries of History and The Future, even that understanding of Matter may be circumspect). Such are my self imposed limitations in the understanding of Home.

As I build and re-build, I aspire to consider the distinctions between habit and ritual.
In this expanded moment, there is the road Home.

Press Arrow to Play Video.

"Higgs boson Luminosity"© 2009
Video Collage
From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

"It's like art. Is art useless? Yes and no. The concepts [of particle physics] are so beautiful in their simplicity. And they answer most fundamental questions. Physics and art are two forms of the same wish of human intuition, to understand nature."

Fabiola Gianotti - quoted in The Genesis 2.0 Project / Vanity Fair Jan. 2010

What's back in your little town, human?

Next: "Painting My Home"