"It doesn't even feel like it's being processed by your head": lesbian affective home journeys to and within townsville, Queensland, Australia

RIS ID

82112

Publication Details

Waitt, G. & Johnston, L. (2013). "It doesn't even feel like it's being processed by your head": lesbian affective home journeys to and within townsville, Queensland, Australia. In A. Gorman-Murray, B. Pini & L. Bryant (Eds.), Sexuality, Rurality, and Geography (pp. 143-158). Lanham: Lexington Books.

Abstract

Townsville is my home now, but it's not where I belong, if that makes sense. I'm still so attached to Perth and Western Australia, like I consider that my home. I lived there for over 30 years, so it's been the primary experience of other places. And still comes back to me in so many ways. . . . I sort of feel those pangs of homesickness, and sometimes unexpectedly, like you're zoning out in front of the telly and they'll have some sort of story on Perth and so I get an emotional reaction. You feel it in your heart, like it doesn't even feel like it's being processed by your head, it just like catches your chest. ... I always talk about when I die I'll go home. I asked in the Will for my ashes to be scattered all over a beach in Fremantle. I feel like I'm really connected to that place, but at the same time I don't want to go back, at this point in time. As this quote from Sharni suggests, feelings for home are embodied, felt, often contradictory, and connected to one's sense of belonging and subjectivity. We begin with this quote because it is a vivid illustration of what we address in this chapter, in other words, the relationship between mobility, homemaking, emotion, and lesbian subjectivities.

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