Where your what is?


'There is no place like home', concluded Dorothy after her magical experience in the world of Oz. No place like home.

Home. What an abstract word. Home is where the heart is, some pray. Where the wifi conects automatically, laugh off some others. Personally I don't like this one, because it makes every free wifi spot my home, and I don't feel that at all. I like the one that jokes about home being where your beer is... 

But anyway, it's a complicated concept, home. Is home where you live? Is home where the people you love are? What would the refugees escaping from Syria answer? Are they leaving home behind, even if there's nothing left there anymore? Will they ever be able to find home in their new hosting countries? Where is home to the unloved child, the one that finds protection in the street, the one that has nowhere to go...

Where is home for someone who has her heart divided in more than one place? 

I guess you can have more than one home, right? You make your own home. You make your small comfort zone. You have your two pictures, and your laptop, and that postcard that some friend send you from a country you might, or might not, visit. Some old tickets to some concert and one or two of your favourite books. This could be home, right?

Or home is wherever you are, because maybe the feeling of your heart beating against your ribs is enough. Knowing that there are good people on this planet already makes you feel home. Sleeping under a million stars. We could ask any nomad. 

Home, home is where your children are with you. Where you feel safe, even if you have nothing. Where you can watch them sleep, without fears that kids shouldn't be exposed to. 

And maybe, maybe, home is where you have found people you love. Home is knowing you have your own space, but prefer to stay in the kitchen. Knowing who arrived by the way they go up the stairs. Home can be, I guess, strangers becoming friends, becoming family. Home is knowing you will have a smile waiting for you at the end of the day, or the smell of coffee from downstairs.

Home. 

There is no place like home. But which one of them?

Ana 'Uala'