In article 1 (Fæø et al., 2019), we interpreted the interview participants’ descriptions of ‘home’ as existentially founded constructions consisting of a variety of
components. Primarily, this was found in terms of habits and routines, understood as rhythms in how they acted and structured their lives. This could be seen both in the basic activitities of daily living, such as cooking and cleaning, but also in terms of rhythms based on wider cycles, such as the seasonal tending of the garden. In this holding on to rhythms, we can see parallels to how persons with dementia strive to sustain personhood (Hughes, 2014; Kitwood, 1997). Traces of these rhythms can also be found in article 2 in the participants’ descriptions of meaningful activities, such as hunting or taking walks (Fæø, Bruvik et al., 2020). This brings us over to the
participants’ relation to the outside environment, such as nature, the sea or the once familiar streets, and how this was part of their experience of being home (Fæø et al., 2019). Here we also find the internal relation between the environment and the
activities. Although not explicitly stated, these descriptions also involved material things: the homes’ inferior, equipment needed to perform activities, items that triggered memories, and so on. We also found how relations to others were described as essential in how they experienced being home. In this case, we primarily
emphasized the participants’ descriptions of their strong relationship to their spouses, whether they still lived together or not. One of these descriptions also bordered a transcendental sphere, in the experience of feeling the presence of a deceased spouse (Fæø et al., 2019). Although not described in the article, the participants also shared stories of their children, their parents and siblings, and how these important persons in various ways had influenced their homes and their views of what a home ought to be like. In sum, these findings match the views of Martinsen (2006) and Zingmark et al. (1995) concerning how the home consists of a multitude of relations between the home, the person(s) inhabiting and guesting it, its surroundings, the things it contains and the activities it houses.
Figure 1 is an illustration of how some of these components may together constitute the construction of a home that situates the person in the world and the
interdependence between ‘the home’ and lived life. These components must be understood as overarching. As we have seen, the composition of these components vary from person to person, as do their size, their internal relations and their importance in holding up the structure as a whole.
Figure 1. Illustration of ‘the home’
Central in the figure, we find the component ‘identity’ signifying how the relation to oneself and creating an identity is central in the experience of being home (Hilli &
Eriksson, 2017; Molony, 2010; Sixsmith, 1986). Kitwood (1997) describes how a person’s identity creates a sense of continuation from the past into the present and consistency across the roles and contexts one are, or have been, part of.
4.2.1 The complexity of ‘home’
Further, in article 1, we argued that the components of ‘home’ must be understood as intricately interwoven and interdependent on each other, constructed as a complex network of structures, carefully placed and adapted to create a place to dwell (Fæø et al., 2019). This became even clearer in descriptions of how the progression of dementia, or other changes in life, had disrupted some of these components of
‘home,’ and how these disruptions spread like ripples of water to other components of
‘home.’ The once familiar streets had become unknown, affecting the participants’
confidence in going out on their own; they had trouble following conversations, which affected their relation to others; they could no longer handle once familiar equipment, affecting their ability to manage on their own (Fæø et al., 2019). The participants also described how they continuously strove to adapt to these changes.
Home
Challenges like these, and the effort to adapt have been widely explored in research on the experience of living with dementia (Bjorklof et al., 2019; Eriksen et al., 2016;
Gorska et al., 2018). With Førsund et al. (2018), we can say that the participants strove to maintain an experience of space while ‘living in a space where the walls keep closing in.’ Here we are at the core of our findings presented in article 1; in the reciprocal relationship between ‘home’ and ‘lived life.’ On the one hand the home is continuously adapted to fit the person(s) inhabiting it; its form and content are adjusted according to the persons rhythms and changes of rhythms. On the other hand, the home forms the person, forcing the person to adjust her or his rhythms in harmony with the possibilities afforded by the home. This implies that the ‘home,’ in addition to being a complex construction, also can be seen as organic in nature, continuously in change through a formative, creational process. This matches the descriptions of being home as a continuous process, as described by Douglas (1991), Martinsen (2006) and Zingmark et al. (1995). A process that is perpetual and immediate, and that may, in itself, be seen as part of what makes the home, as a physical space, into a home in an existential manner. Without this effort, the home would be a ‘non-home’ (Douglas, 1991) and simply a place to reside. Thus, the home and the effort of a continuous creation of the home are also conjointed. This effort is not necessarily pleasant; it may be painful and demanding. Hellström et al. (2013) describe how women with dementia strive to hold on to their chores, although increasingly strenuous, to hold on to the feeling of being home and keeping the core of self. Some participants portrayed in article 1 described how they strove to keep up their routines, to keep their homes, practically and existentially (Fæø et al., 2019).
One described times of hardship on his childhood farm during the Second World War as ‘splendid times’ due to the family’s collaborative effort to utilize all available resources to care for themselves and support their neighbors. Perhaps we can say that not only despite of, but also because of, the hard work and need for well-functioning relations between all components of the home – people, things, nature, activities – the home as an existential fundament, was strengthened.
4.2.2 The nest-home – a metaphorical interpretation Although Figure 1 may serve as an illustration to describe the overarching
components that constitutes ‘home,’ I will here present a more complex metaphorical interpretation in order to increase the understanding of the complexity of the home.
Unlike the strictly planned constructions of human houses, I will argue that the way the birds build their nests may be an enlightening perspective, enhancing our
understanding of the complex constructions of the home as a vital, existential ‘home.’
Indeed, Young (1998) uses nesting as a metaphor of how older persons adapt and settle when moving to congregate housing. French author Jules Michelet (1868) portrays the bird’s house as follows:
Thus, then, his house is his very person, his form, and his immediate effort—I would say, his suffering. The result is only obtained by a constantly repeated pressure of his breast. There is not one of these blades of grass but which, to take and retain the form of a curve, has been a thousand and a thousand times pressed against his bosom, his heart, certainly with much disturbance of the respiration, perhaps with much palpitation (p.249).
In many ways, I will argue that this poetic description sums up the essence of the home in its existential meaning, as described above. Transferring the descriptions of
‘home’ to the metaphor of the nest, it illustrates not only the creational aspects of being home, but also the effort, and the importance of the effort, put into this process, and not least, the complexity of the home as a structure. Again, we can refer to the example of the participant describing times of hardship as ‘splendid times’ (Fæø et al., 2019). This was ascribed to a complex interaction between various components of his home. We can only imagine how slight differences in the composition of these components might have given quite another comprehension of the situation. In line with Sixsmith’s (1986) remarks that the experiential modes of home only exist in an analytical sense, Michelet (1868) observes that the nest should be regarded more as a condensation than a weaving. The various components of the home may be seen as entwined and entangled in each other, so that even though they to a certain degree might be distinguishable, they are also, to a certain degree, indivisible, making life go
on ‘sort of automatically’ – as one participant described it (Fæø et al., 2019).
Although we can observe a variety of composite parts making out the construction that is home, we cannot subtract them, draw them out one by one and attempt to treat each part individually. The home cannot be decomposed, or, to use the words of Martinsen (2006), dissected, without at the same time being damaged. Likewise, a bird may, perhaps, be able to rebuild a damaged nest, but only by taking into account the construction of the nest as a whole. The dilemma then arises when persons with dementia are in need of care and support in order to maintain their homes and when their own efforts are not enough to adapt to the continuous disruptions of rhythms they are experiencing. How can formal or informal caregivers help maintain or repair the home, or build sustainable scaffolds to support the home (McCabe et al., 2018), without at the same time causing damage to the home, and harm to the person?