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.
This brings to mind the lyrics of one of Marvin Gaye's songs "Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home". As for me, up to know I have had two homes; one in the country of my birth where I grew up with its memories of childhood and adolescence, and the other in my adopted country where, as an adult, I had a family of my own. Both homes have an equal claim to my heart. Who knows what the future holds and where it will take me and, more importantly, if my heart will follow, but at least if I can lay down my hat there, I will be content to call it home.
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