I have many friends who are expats. This started to make me curious and I began to ask them where home is for them.
But I think, like every time we ask someone a question, we are not looking for their answers, we are searching for our own.
Most of these people had a clear answer to give me. Had I one for myself? Where is home for me?
If we consider home to be “a familiar setting”, then the closest thing to a home for me is my Punto. Of course I have a house where I live. I consider it more of a base though, a place to keep my favorite objects and host my friends.
I chose a job that doesn’t restrict me geographically, that I could practice from any corner of the world.
Going back to my early childhood, I still remember the tiny white suitcase I kept beside my bed, all packed and ready to take and leave at any given moment. At that age the only things I needed were my Barbie dolls and their clothes.
Every time I go on a trip, every time friends or family ask me, I only give the date of departure. I do not take the return date for granted (nor do they anymore).
I have a home country that is an undeniable part of me, where I often feel an alien, and which I could leave again as I did in the past to make a new nest anywhere.
So, what makes home to me? Is home where my (gypsy) heart is?
Only one answer comes to my mind:
Home is where love is.
