Robyn Taylor

The Long Way Home.

Part 1: The Outsider

I feel an immediate sinking in my stomach when I hear his voice. It is reluctant in its tone. Self-conscious perhaps, regretful definitely, but to what degree? It is almost threatening in its reluctance, words are forced out like shards of glass. It pains him.

I can tell he is secretly questioning my reasons and is suspicious of my motives. He is predicting the judgement to come and is prepared to attack if the opportunity presents itself, which of course it does.

When my mother left home and America at aged 22, she knew that once the plane took flight she was never going back. This work aims to understand the reasons for her leaving and my encounter with the family she left behind. Just the word family brings forth so much responsibility. It is endless in its expectations but then also in its guilt. With this piece I attempted to confront both emotional and historic distances by closing the physical expanse between my American relatives and myself. However what I came to understand was that it is not necessarily physical closeness that matters but perhaps imagined closeness is equally as important, especially when it comes down to something as intricate as the family.