Rhythms of Life — The Temporal Home

Abstract

Time is central to the meaning of home. Our experience of home is marked by the human life cycle and its notable events, as well as the passing of calendar time, annual events and the seasons, which determine how we interact with the spatial home and the food we eat. As Douglas (1991: 289) states, ‘a home is not only a space, it also has some structure in time’ and is defined by the regular rhythms of home life. The intersection of temporality with spatiality is also key to an understanding of home as process (Kabachnik et al. 2010: 317). While we tend to think of time in linear terms, as the movement from past to present to future and the journey from childhood to old age, the temporal aspect of home is more likely to be cyclical, repetitive and sometimes chaotic. While past, present and future are often perceived as discrete, they can never be neatly separated. Daily routines, birthdays, religious festivals and political commemorations introduce a circular rhythm into home life, bringing the past into the present and allowing us to anticipate the future, while unexpected events such as war or illness destabilise the linear trajectory of our lives.