Now the world outside really is unsafe, everything changes. The demand for “safe space” will never chime in the same way as it once did. No one’s priority right now is being safe from opinions they don’t really like; we all want to be safe from viral loads. Public space is dangerous – and eerie, empty urban vistas have never looked more beautiful.
Private space is dangerous, too. Domestic violence is rising all over the world, the terrorising by men of women who feel less able to escape than ever. Home is a sanctuary for some and a prison for others, and home, the domestic sphere, the only permissible location for many women, is now the only place many of us can be.
Sure, we are lucky to have homes – and our society’s sudden ability to shelter the homeless is obviously a good thing – but so many homes have no outside space and walls can quickly close in. “Home, with our bodies touching / Home, and the cameras watching / Home, will infect whatever you do / Where home, comes to life from out of the blue,” sang David Byrne, capturing the ambivalence about what home may mean.
I hear this ambivalence all the time at the moment. I hear the people who are boasting that their homes are not in the centre of the epidemic, and I hear those who think that, after all of this, they want to move. I hear those nesting and baking and making themselves feel safe by dipping into a reservoir of happy childhood memories, covering themselves in gravity blankets of nostalgic pastimes, tethering themselves to happier memories.
Download Google Chrome
Download Mozilla Firefox
Download Opera
