‘Stay. Home.’
Home is not necessarily the place where you grew up.
Home is where you can’t wait to go back.
It is Mar… ops no it is April of a year which has been throwing at us quite a lot already. I have been still in the same place now for three weeks, quite a record, thinking way too much, baking even more and missing places terribly. I have left my backpack in the closet, a place where I don’t see it much and I started traveling with my mind through memories and adventures and moments of the past few years. So, I believe this is that time when memories become handy.
Like a third of the world population I am here, still, in a cold, sunny, windy, slow and empty Saint Petersburg with no planes to catch, trains to jump on, no opportunities to leave and no choices to make. I soon realised that buying eggs with Turkic writing on, getting veggies from my Uzbek friend on the street and attempting to make a Russian fusion Dahl, it is still not enough. ‘Stay Home’ they say. STAY and HOME. Both of these words have a very different image in my mind than average. ‘Stay' involves stillness, a concept which I am not very familiar with and ‘home’, something that to me and a lot of other people doesn’t look like a stereotypical 5 years old draw of a box with a triangle on top, two squares inside as windows and a tree next to it.
There are many places I call home now, places where I fell comfortable, where I don’t need to look at the map anymore, places which are part of my comfort zones. I have been thinking a lot about the concept of home lately and how I have been living and thinking of this idea in the past 8 years. I realised that having a home ‘in you’ rather than in a physical place works for me and, actually there is no much difference between the two concepts. Yes, it is maybe harder and sometimes frustrating and annoying for some aspects but it fits my lifestyle, my idea of ‘living’ and my approach to the world much better. I have been spending time in countries and places where people are nomads, where all they have fits in a Yurt (the traditional nomad dwelling in Central Asia and Mongolia) which they move twice a year usually from one place to the other. The idea is pretty much the same for me. I have a backpack that doesn’t allow you many choices in terms of outfit (that’s clearly why I have 3293621836218 pair of earrings) and I will tell you how I pack and what I fit it. Being a nomad nowadays requires some physiological strength and balance especially in a world and in areas where the traditional way of leaving is the only one socially accepted or understood. ‘Home’ the physical space with a roof, a door, and your objects in it gives you security, stability, mental balance. It reminds you of what you are, what you have been and what you want to be. It reminds you of what you have built, how far you have gone and how long you still want to go. Maybe you have a wall to stick photos and post it on it. Maybe there are bookshelves with books you want to read and those you like to go back and read again.
‘Us’, moving to different places, to different houses, experience the same. There is no much difference at all. We only do it with fewer objects and more thoughts. Our wall to stick photos on and our draws with objects are in our minds. Everything is the same, very tidy and organised in the biggest space ever which we call it brain. I have learned to carry less and maybe also care about less. A place becomes ‘home’ easily and quickly, once I put down the backpack, I let it explode in the room, I put clothes on a shelf and the coffee I carry in the kitchen. That’s a routine that has nothing different from whom lives in the same place for longer. In these days of ‘stay at home’, I like to close my eyes sometime and think of wherever other ‘home’ I want and after years of practice, I can do it and I can be in every ‘home’ I like and this is the bright side of having my home IN me.
Home is not necessarily the place where you grew up. Home is where you can’t wait to go back, where you can’t wait to be there to call your friends and tell them you are back. Home is where smells are familiar, where you don’t need to look at maps to walk around, where you remember where your favorite lassi is and where people remember your face. Home is wherever you can’t wait to be but also wherever you are ready to leave, cause you know you will be returning soon, again and again.
