What is home, and where can it be called home? These are the questions occupying my mind nowadays. My experiences have shown me that life is about cycles, and each period has its rhythm. And various subjects coming up in each phase are an invitation to something deeper within me that needs to be faced and explored. Some even talk about seven-year cycles.

Writing this blog post takes me back to a conversation years ago. I had an exchange with a friend of mine who was going through significant changes in life. He was in the middle of his 40-s. After many years of living in Norway, he had decided to move back to his country of birth, Greece. Going home, ancestors, and inheritance were the focus of his mind, but to me, all those matters sounded like a foreign language. I did not understand the meaning of it. 

Myself, I was in my mid-20-s and not concerned with such deep matters or questions. I regarded myself as a world citizen and was ready to explore the next spot on our blue planet, my home. I had been on the move all my life, and that was normal to me. Then, it did not even occur to me how all the moving had been affected me and my being. I was far away from that reflection, and not ready for it, talking about cycles.  

Since I was a little girl, my family had been on the move from place to place, in Iran. Change and movement had been a significant part of my life. We were a traditional family, like many other families in the 1970-s. My father was the “money-maker,” and that made him the “decision-maker” as well, and my mother was the “minister of domestic matters,” kids, cooking, and caretaking. Every time my father decided to move, we would follow him, and why did we have to move? The job situation was the explanation. He was a man who needed variation. Until today I am not sure what was going on inside him, and that will remain as a part of his journey and history. Anyhow, with the worsening of the political situation in Iran, my parents started thinking of the future. They knew with the political power in the hands of the bloodthirsty Mullahs who ruled and killed in the name of God; there were no humane prospects in the country. And the age of 14, my family moved to Istanbul. In the late 1980-s, Turkey was a transit country for many Iranians.

Half a year later, we were new in Norway. Coming to a new country, culture at that age of 14 ½ half, turned my life upside down. After a few months, I decided to move back to Iran and did run away from home. I never made it back to Iran, but I also never returned to my parent’s house. And that is how my life in Norway started.

I think somewhere across the line, I had absorbed my father’s restlessness, and that feeling had also become mine. In Norway, I moved from place to place, town to town, and at the beginning of my 20-s, I started to travel around the world. Traveling around filled me with the real sensation of happiness and joy. On the road, I saw the beauty of “imperfection.” I did not need to be perfect and had a real taste of freedom and felt wholeness.

Later, when I became a mother, I entered a new phase. It is strange how adaptable we are as humans. With my new role as a mum, I had to settle down, face myself in the so-called “normal” life. During these 18 years as a mother, a combination of responsibility and time has sanded down my edges and deepened my perspective of life. But I still hear the road whispering my name, though my inner being is more aware of what I need and has a broader perspective than 20 years ago.

During these years, I have discovered that nature fills me with a sensation of peace; being on the road aligns me with total freedom; listening to a beautiful piece of music always connects me to Godly vibrations. However, the longing for belonging has grown inside me the older I get, and that makes me wonder, where is home, and what is home? I know one thing for sure: I do not feel home surrounded by and around “perfect” people.

What about you? What is home for you?

By the way, I recently discovered that my father’s grandfather was a trader, travelling around the world. Yes, talk about ancestral line and inheritance.