Rowan MartinWhere have I been? Where am I going?The word 'been' brings connotations to my mind. 'Been' is close to 'be', to live and exist. I have been to many places, have the photographs to prove it, but I think I only really lived in a very few. And those places where I was, where I could 'be', where I have been, they were ones related to people - my home and where my mother lives has not changed for 23 years, and I don't think it will change. Where I lived until I was 2 - with my grandmother - will also never change. She is 93, hale and healthy, and has lived in her home since time immemorial. Only my teachers in my demolished schools are scattered, to other super-size institutions where their amazing mood changes and stresses might go unnoticed and axes readied for battle with teenagers might be less bloodied.These are the places I have been. A trinity of three homes, two with family and one with my teachers, who were overwhelmingly female, not always kind, not always good, not always understanding - but these places (which are created and defined by women) have helped make what I am so far. These are the places I have been.When I was 18, I removed myself physically from these places, sometimes as far away as possible - ending on my 24th birthday, when I came home and decided to stay home. Where am I going? Still home, I think, but also further away. As I am further removed from those original women by location and growing maturity and responsibility - and I am still in education, still learning, nearly always from other women, and live in a separate city from the trinity - I find more of them in me. Like a feedback loop or a memory glitch, I see my mother's expressions, and I hear my grandmother's phrases, and I steal my schoolteacher's tricks for my own pupils. I'ma walking map and memento of the women who mean home to me. There are overlaps between the three, like a Venn diagram.The map isn't finished; there are unmarked spaces, and unexplored areas, too. I am more than the sum of my parts and I am going to explore my great unknown.Rowan Martin
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