Home is Home… is it?

So I watched the movie “Brooklyn” recently. A beautiful movie about peoples’ roots, belonging, family and love and home. A very significant part of the movie is a dialog between Eilis and Tony when he asks her to marry him. Eilis has just told him that she needs to go back to Ireland for a while to be with her mom. She replies him “Are you worried I won’t come back otherwise?” and he says:”Well. Yes. Home is … HOME, you know?!”

I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet so I won’t talk about all the details or the ending but the movie made me think about my own life. I left Germany a long time ago. At that time I didn’t have the intention to never return. It just so happened that I ended up starting a new life in South Africa.

So, where is home? Is home home? It’s a romantic thought and a very good topic for a movie. However, I know, without a doubt, for me, home is where my love is, which is South Africa. This is where I am happiest.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my family and the awesome friends I still have over there and some of the things and places which were special to me while I was growing up.

One of those places is this stunning forest, known as “Waldpark” where I spent many hours with and without my family, walking our dogs, playing with friends, going for a jog, collecting leaves in autumn, picking wild flowers for mother’s day in spring…

My dad took lots of photographs here in various places – of us as a family: my sisters first outing in a pram, me as a toddler collecting pebbles at the “beach”, our dog’s first winter walk in the snow… He also just photographed the beautiful forest and its trees… I guess he loved trees as much as I do.

On my most recent visit to Mannheim I sneaked out one Sunday morning for a little walk around this oh so familiar territory. Just me, my memories and my camera.

So maybe, a little bit of “old home” is still here (I lightheartedly speak about my previous life), in my memories, in this forest. Nothing can replace that. And that’s okay.

For the rest of it:

“Home is where the heart is”