My Experience of seeing ‘The Outrun’ and ‘Walk the House’
I saw both the movie and the exhibition just two days apart, and each moved me deeply and got me thinking about home.
The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and based on Amy Liptrot’s memoir, follows the story of Rona, a young woman grappling with personal demons. In an attempt to escape and rediscover herself, she runs away, far from home only to realise that what she’s searching for has been within reach all along, back where she came from. And an exhibition at Tate Modern by Do Ho Suh Walk The House, asks whether home is a space, a feeling or an idea.
Both bought up big questions for me:
Where is my home?
Where do I feel safe?
What is my ultimate medicine for healing all the wounds of my heart?
Why did I run away? Did I run away? What from?
Why can't I go back? Why is my heart still heavy?
How have I learned to numb down? What is my substance of addiction?
The answer... my mind!
Addiction always happens in the mind. It is the disease of the mind. The power of the mind then captivates the heart and the body, tricking them into wanting the substance more and more to get the same fix.
Addiction is not always alcohol or substances; too much of anything can have the same effect.
The movie talks about addiction and the powerful destructive energy of it that equally works as a relief to the immense pain the heart feels.
The need to destroy oneself is the driver of addiction. A violence against oneself.
We take medicine to heal or cure something we perceive as broken inside.
Any medicine needs to be taken with compassion towards oneself. This is often proven to be the most difficult part of healing.
The medicine is often residing deep in our soul. The wound is the opening for us to follow the inner landscape, in order to find the medicine.
And it is always within ourselves.
Healers always say that they are just the conduit or channel to support the patient in finding the medicine within.
Both the film and the exhibition resonated with me deeply.
My sense of home is always the home I grew up in. I still dream of that home, my room and the vast space at the back of my wardrobe, filled with Persian carpets. The silence of that space and the cool air still gives me the chills.
I remember standing there somewhat enchanted, there was a thin white curtain separating my hanging clothes from the deep end of the wardrobe. For whatever reason, in my mind’s eye, I often saw a giant tortoise coming out of there and occupying my entire room.
I watched Do Ho Suh dedicating himself to bringing his sense of home to life by the labour-intensive act of wrapping his childhood home with paper and rubbing every detail with graphite, then leaving the paper on the house for nine months, through rain and shine, to absorb the sense of it. He mentioned that this was a highly intimate act, almost erotic, as he needed to get very close to the fixtures of the house, to run gently and consistently with a specific pressure at a measured pace, otherwise it wouldn’t work; either the paper gives in or there will be no marking. Essentially, he is giving each part and every detail of the home a big warm embrace.
In this way, he is trying to make the essence of the house his own. The act of rubbing every texture in exact measurement over nine months. And then, much like giving birth to it’s essence, a million metres away in a gallery in London. Constructing a life-size paper house.
Beautiful, intricate and touching, but completely out of place.
His house.
I saw Rona in the movie and Amy in her memoir doing the same.
Home for Rona was about harshness; the utter harshness of nature, the problematic minds of her parents and the confusion it inflicted on her.
She felt responsible for her father's mental condition and her mother's escape into religion. Like any child who can’t make sense of what is happening to her heroes. She takes on the role of a parentified child.
The pain and the burden were too much for her.
She escaped into alcohol. The numbing down and giving full reins to the out-of-control self was her way of playing out the trauma. And of course, the fooling of herself that when she drinks, she's fun, life is fun, but in reality, with each drink she was drowning and destroying her life and relationships.
The kinder the people around her were, the more violent she became towards them. Almost shouting “Why are you kind to me? I am not worth it! I show you that I am not”.
Returning home broken and at rock bottom gave Rona the edge to start looking at her life from a different perspective.
The harshness of her parents’ reality, her surroundings and the power of nature around her allowed her to face the harshness she felt inside.
Slowly, slowly, she started to make a pathway towards herself, to be able to embrace herself and not look for escape, but to stay with herself. To look after herself, to notice her needs and desires and to take them seriously.
She found writing and drawing as part of her daily routine. The ideas started to take shape. Her curiosity started to come back. The spark in her eye and the colour of her hair changed. She heard the rare birds and swam with the seals.
Slowly, slowly, she gained the ability and perspective to see her mother through a different lens, to see her pain and the reasons behind her choices. She gained the strength to let her dad be a grown-up and to deal with his own demons, too.
By recognising her needs, she was able to recognise their needs.
Slowly, slowly, she felt safe enough to explore what she wanted to do and to pursue it rather than sabotage it.
Both the movie and the exhibition made me think of big questions.
Both gave me answers from different perspectives.
Maybe home is the memory I have, which is selective. Maybe the safety I am thirsty for is within ME.
What has happened to me is only a part of me, but not the whole of me.
I can look after myself, I can honour my body, mind and spirit by being kind to myself even when it’s boring.
Out of boredom comes creative thinking and doing.
Creativity in action can work like alchemy, and the magic can be born through it.