Home is... | Day 137 of my 2023 Journal

home-is

Driving North on A7 towards Denmark, we pass through Hamburg with the jaw-dropping sight of the containers and the enormous cargo ships. We pass through a landscape we have seen many times, as it is the gateway to our home country.

Wait: Home?

Denmark is our country of origin. It has a unique vibe, something distinct. I am struggling to describe it.

The architecture stands out as more narrow and less decorated than in Germany. Everything is smaller. Farmland everywhere, almost no nature. Bridges.

Hardly any construction work on the roads that are in perfect shape. Everything is very neat.

We came on a public Holliday in the sunshine. People were smiling. We had a beautiful lunch stop in a nature park, went for a nice walk to enjoy the deer and trees and sun, and continued to visit Jesper's parents before we continued to park at our friends' farm.

Is this coming home?

We all have different perspectives on the case, but we all love Copenhagen very much and still feel Danish. We have become Danish nomads, and your youngest child has lived on the road for almost half his life. To him, it is very strange and unsettling that everyone else in the street will understand us when we talk to each other. To him, Danish is a private and personal language.

When I let go of my home and house five years ago, it was painful. I did it because I knew a better life and a greater adventure was on the other side. I knew back then that the feeling of “home” would change and that that change would be okay. Would be good.

Now, to me, home is where my family is. Home is the love.

Everything else is practical: The food, the clothes, the computers, the books. This matters much less than the feel of home, the love and commitment of having each other's back, of being in a private space, of unconditional love.

Sometimes people say children need a home to grow up in and from. I agree. But what they need is this: the vibe, the love, the commitment, the safety, the open-mindedness. Walls and stuff are not the core. Love is the core.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

# 137 of my 2023 writing challenge - Read them all here 

Images from the day

home-is-forest

homeis-doucks

homeis-river

home-is-deers

homeis-treetrunk


Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 
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3 comments

Sandra Dodd
 

My favorite part:  "Now, to me, home is where my family is. Home is the love."


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Monica
 

I like the sentiment home is where the heart is.  I recently, April 17th, lost my mom.  I’m an American living abroad here in Denmark.  Lost two brothers, both rather young.  One died of cancer at 19 in ‘92 and the other commit suicide at 36 in ‘95.  I remember having conversations with you about being a stay at home mom and I home”schooled” my daughter up until she started in børnehave klasse at just shy of 6 years old, and considered homeschooling after that, but opted out.  My husband just poorly timed a move at the same time I lost my mom, so everything is in an upheaval, and I am in grief again.  Life seems fragile, and family precious.  I’m glad to know you.  You’re one of the people who has treasured motherhood and time together, and I am inspired by your example.  I’ve always had a very real raw sense that life is short.  Now without my mom, I also feel like the one person who really knew me since forever, and really believed in me is gone, so that’s extremely hard, these days to cope with, without breaking down into tears.  Thank you for being you.  Thank you for valuing your family’s close time together and for sharing your experience, strength and hope.  And welcome back.  You’re right home is where the heart is.  For me, it was broken between two countries, and I felt rather rootless.  Long conversations with my mom on the phone were what kept me grounded somehow.  It became a lot harder this past year because of her dementia.  i worried so much about her and the fact she wasn’t in any long-term care facility, but I felt rather powerless to the situation.  I have a lot of guilt over not rescuing her or bringing her to Denmark, of course the healthcare wouldn’t have transferred, and she would have only been allowed to have been here as a tourist and it was too complicated with her medical situation.  Many of the times I called her, it was to remind her of the stories she’d told me, growing up.  So much of our lives is in the interpretation of events.  Anyways, I can’t imagine a world without my mom, but she is a part of how I mother. I still am a stay at home mom.  Music s what seems to bind us back together again, and get us to focus on constructive things, focus, and realize the infiinite nature of the universe and endlessness to learning, and it helps to heal and bring us back together, after my daughter has spent a long day at school.  It also helped me cope with my brother’s deaths back in the ‘90s.  It’s just there are never quite really any real quick fixes, are there?  Healing from grief is a journey like motherhood, it is one of the long haul.  I’m feeling pretty raw right now.  Anyways, more power to you, as a fello mom out there!  Much love to you and to yours.  And welcome home, although as you say, you bring home with you wherever you are, so long as you are together.  it is a constant challenge with screens and everyone on their own little screen, it sometimes feels like it’s an aquarium we live in.  I’m glad to see you out in Nature!

❤️

Monica 

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Cecilie
 

Dear Monica. 

I lost My mother four years ago, I totally hear you. Being the oldest woman in the family is a tough one to carry for someone who still has young children. 

If you need a talk send me a text. 


❤️ Cecilie 

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