H&M tee and bangles, headband from etsy (ashaloo), bag from Chinese market, necklace and shorts from boutiques in Taipei.
There are homes that you return to throughout your life. A place that is present regardless of the circumstances which surround you. These streets, houses, restaurants, or hiding places don’t dissapear when you move, they have barely changed upon your return, and hold the memories you thought you had forgotten. My grandmother’s home, at the epicenter of Taipei, holds this value for me. After a tedious, long flight with an one month old infant, my father carried me down this street and introduced me to his ever present destination. The house is consistently packed to the brim with my cousins, uncles, aunts, and millions of family friends who claim they have known me since I was born. It is a place where I was a toddler, where I left for eight years and could never imagine it’s familiarity when I returned, it is where I became best friends with my pack of cousins, and possesses the kitchen which makes my mother’s favourite onion pancakes. It is where I spent hot summers as a teenager, sleeping through earthquakes and escaping at 4am to visit the McDonalds down the street. The phone number has always remained the same, as has the lady with a cart who still sells flavoured ice on the side of the street. It’s where I now return monthly with the boy and hope one day our kids will visit and play on the floor of the living room or sit around the gigantic round dining table, building lifelong relationships with their pack of cousins, eating the best Taiwanese food on offer.
