Lost, Then Found

I sat down to have lunch at a cafe with bacon toast. Summer will start soon. Above me is the huge sail of an umbrella; it looks like ancient frescoes: dust and rain are unhurriedly painting a centuries-old canvas on it. Light jazz is playing, and around me, people buzz like a beehive in different languages. Opposite me are two elderly Italian couples, to the side are girls from Austria, their language expressive and a bit dry, like an oatmeal cookie. And the majority around me are Slovenians.

Sometimes it's not us who own things, but things that own us. That’s how it was with our home and our life. Two and a half years ago, we moved from Ukraine to Slovenia. The first year here, I felt like I was among aliens: incomprehensible questions at the supermarket checkout, strange letters on billboards, overcoming my shame every time to ask something in English, and accepting that you will be funny and misunderstood. A lost thirty-year-old child. Some part of my adulthood was lost, my ability to joke and pick up random hints in words. I was warmed only by their demeanor: a friendly grandmother at the checkout, a pleasant man at the post office ready to explain anything to me with Google Translate. That is what kept me going. It’s been 2.5 years now, I’ve picked up the language and can boldly speak with them, go to the dentist, understand the courier, and most importantly—I understand their questions, meanings, and way of life. My husband and I took Slovenian courses where they taught us to pronounce words that are hard enough to even fit in your mouth, let alone turn them around in there. And we managed.

We moved and transported our entire lives in two suitcases. At first, it was unclear to me where my table was, my chair, my corner. But in all of this, what I needed was not to find my home, but to find MYSELF and my values. My husband and I arrived right before the New Year, checked into a modest hotel next to babbling brooks at the foot of a mountain, and celebrated the holiday with a jar of canned potatoes and sandwiches. The cherry tomatoes reminded me of Christmas tree ornaments. I was in complete trust with life and how it guides us. It was only hard to get through New Year's Eve: fireworks thundered outside the window, while just two days ago, shells were thundering like that in our city. I so want to write this story about some fictional characters and fictional situations, but I chose to write about myself.

A week later, we checked out of the hotel and went to live in the center of our mountain town. January began, and instead of snow, for some reason, it poured rain. I asked my husband to rent us a beautiful place. We didn't have a honeymoon, and I really wanted to surround myself with beauty. Here I got my first corner, and I sat on the floor to draw. I had brought along unfinished sketches, watercolors, and graphite pencils. In a new place, it’s somehow scary to draw something new, so I continued to draw the old. And I felt good. We spent a whole month there.

A high dining table with a wooden top. My husband worked at it, and I created our breakfasts and dinners. Every morning I put a cup of tea on it and laid out my notebooks. Sometimes I just stood by the window and looked at the wet roofs and the windows of the bookstore. The table wasn't mine, the apartment wasn't mine, but it was at this very table that I started writing again, making plans, and feeling alive. Slowly, I started creating new drawings, fresh ideas and characters began to come, and I felt that I could repeat this at any table. Because the desire inside me is stronger than the outside. And the blue shower. Such a rich color, as if a piece of the sea had accidentally settled in the bathroom. After walks, I warmed myself under the hot water and caught myself thinking that I already knew the way home even without a GPS. And I began to play this new life. I bought new cheeses at the neighboring store, greeted the saleswoman in the bakery, picked out shampoo in the local shop.

A month flew by, and we moved again—found an apartment and committed to a long-term lease. And it’s so strange: we found a space very similar to the one we had in Ukraine, but bigger, with a spacious balcony and a view of the mountains. We bought a bed, wardrobes, a couch, armchairs, and a washing machine for it. I started decorating the walls and buying vibrant bed linen. And on Saturdays, we started going to the farmers' market, which turned out to be even closer.

My home is not lost—it is always inside me. When I am in touch with my heart. I didn’t realize this on any particular day. One morning, I was looking for my favorite mug and suddenly remembered that it had stayed in Ukraine. Then I remembered my old writing desk. Then the park under the windows of our apartment. And unexpectedly, I noticed that I was smiling. Because the memory of them was with me. The warmth from them was with me. Everything important had somehow moved with me, even though physically it remained thousands of kilometers away. It was important for me to cultivate a foundation not through walls and furniture, but through small moments that gradually build the feeling: I am home. Then there were other moments. When the courier rang the intercom, and I answered him in Slovenian without fear. When I was coming home in the evening and caught myself thinking that I already recognize the Thai food vendor by her walk. In such moments, I understood: home is not an address. Home is a place where it is safe for you to be yourself.

People created borders, countries, different languages. But the Creator didn't make borders; he gave us a profound sense of freedom and the choice to find the place where you feel good. Dancing this dance with life. When you understand that the world doesn't end with a line on a map, you start thinking on an entirely different scale. People are so funny—they’ve even started selling land on the Moon. Considering themselves the main ones on a planet where oceans take up the largest part. Actually, it seems to me that whales might be the most important ones on this planet. I read that the size of a whale is from 7 to 30 meters. When I see a house of roughly the same size, I imagine a whale. And the sky looks very much like the ocean. And a whale's heart is the size of a small car. Now I love looking at small cars and understanding this life more.

Summer arrived. The sun melted the city, the air trembled with heat. I was coming home from the pharmacy and suddenly saw a wide white hose lying on the sidewalk and hiding in a doorway. Its long white neck folded like an accordion, unhurriedly breathing the air like a white dragon. I looked up and saw that it was a shop selling Chinese goods, and this hose was from a simple makeshift air conditioner. I went inside: in the store, an elderly Chinese man was talking via video call with his relatives. I started picking out summer headscarves, found the right pattern, and went to the register. The Chinese man pushed the laptop with his relatives aside and began packing my purchases. And the two of us tried to understand each other in the Slovenian language, which was new to both of us. We did it clumsily and probably incorrectly, but we understood each other with our eyes. We understood our paths and smiled at such an interesting point of intersection.

We choose how to feel. You can always be the master of the situation, you just have to choose yourself as the main one. And after this choice—let yourself feel what will bring you joy right now, and give it to yourself immediately, without putting it off. Usually, this joy is nothing unbelievable. For example, getting a fresh pastry at the bakery and eating it on a bench while it's still warm. Small rituals became another anchor. On Sundays, my husband and I go for walks with a thermos of tea and apple pie. We go to the island, the hills, the park, and on simple hikes around the area. We buy seasonal fruit at the market and argue about which tomatoes taste better. Such things seem insignificant, but it is exactly out of them that life is gradually assembled.

I realized that no one is ever torn out of the context of the world, unless they choose it themselves. I don't believe in immigration when there is the internet and the opportunity to be present in the world you choose right now. We piece together the mosaic of our lives ourselves, living a thousand lives in new homes, changing our states and expanding ourselves. The main thing is to feel this movement and not try to find stability in what is constantly moving and making us alive. I choose not to feed the melancholy and not to put on the role of a victim, but simply to live, gifting myself lightness.

I know: the day will come when I open the window and feel that Slovenia and I have had our fill of each other. I will learn all the roads, try all the desserts in the local coffee shops, we will see all its most interesting rivers, and they will look at us. A new me will form here, with new experience, and my husband and I will set out to look for a new home, one that I will never lose, because I am always home anywhere in the world. Tenants are living in our apartment in Ukraine: their things, their smells, and their events are already there. And we are glad that our home warms their path.

We have set up our current home here. At first, it was a little foreign, but we filled it with lived feelings: baked pies, sung songs, movie watchings, dishwashing, and laughter. And recently we even filled it with guests, and it became completely familiar. When we left, it seemed like we had lost our home, but it turned out that only the walls and the address disappeared. The problem is not in emigration and not in the country—it begins when a person loses that subtle connection with themselves. Lightness is not found in the past or the future, it is in the way we look at this interesting thing called life. A real home is not built of bricks, it is woven from our trust in every new day. It is not a place we return to, but an internal state in which we are capable of shining. And as long as this light burns inside, no relocation will be able to make us homeless.