Where do you feel at home?
Hello there!
It's been a while since I wrote. I have been sick on and off since the beginning of this year, and so I narrowed my activities to work and fun (holidays & meeting loved ones) over the past months.
Yesterday, I watched a beautiful movie "No dogs or Italians allowed" (screenshot above). It's a stop motion movie about an Italian family migrating to France for work. There is poverty and sadness in the movie but also tenderness, sweetness, and love.
The story moved me because my grandfather came as a refugee to India after the India-Pakistan partition. And my father grew up in a poor immigrant family.
As an adult, I have lived as an immigrant in several countries too. And for the most part, it has been a "plug and play" kind of life. This has its advantages - it made it easier to move and experience new environments, it gave me the opportunity to (re)define or explore new identities, and there were fewer obligations on my time or attention, I could choose & design most of my life.
Putting down roots
These days there's a longing within me to have a more intimate connection with the place I live in - maybe this is what they call "putting down roots". So, I try to think of ways in which this could be possible, here are some of the ways I have found:
- Help others in a way that I enjoy. Because this is a quest to have a relationship between my life and the world around me, not just to be a savior or a good person. For example, we are the support family for a kid through a local organization which roughly translates to "neighborhood families". which means we spend time with him every week - playing games, teaching him how to bike or baking together. And I love our time together.
- Get to know the natural world of plants, animals, rivers, and insects and the webs of life I am a part of. For this, we are taking a course on the local nature with an organization here.
- Ask for help - This is interesting because my natural tendency is to be independent and my fear of being judged or denied help makes me less likely to ask for help. But I am learning that asking for help and being vulnerable are also ways of being intimate with the society - whether your request is granted or not :D.
While watching the movie yesterday, I was wondering "What makes a place feel like home?" And I realized that right now, home is a place where I can create happiness or a place I am learning to be emotionally intimate with.
How do you make a home for yourself?
Thanks for reading,
Beant