“Home is where the heart is, buried in my chest, beside bone and lung, beneath tender breast”

Home has been an uncertain factor throughout my life, one that hasn’t stood still but has danced too and fro. My adult life has been a cycle of escape and return, alcoholic spontaneity and nostalgic visions. Chasing the grass on the other side, to come back to Yorkshire’s familiar arms only to feel the same as when I left to leave again. 

The last steps of the dance were taken from my Mums in Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire to Liverpool and recovery. Where I have found a new meaning of what home is. One of love and community, feelings that I knew but couldn’t grasp. In this series I draw on this new meaning to find parallels between where I have come from and where I’m at. Allowing myself to embrace both sides and look upon it as one, not separate. That the grass isn’t greener it’s just green, always green. That home isn’t in bricks and mortar, it’s an inside job, it’s a feeling of belonging and security. And that feeling can be carried at all times. 

Everything’s the same but different.

By Sam Batley