A home for the soul
Why my travels tend to turn into a quest
I love to go on holidays, setting off from the shores of the familiar and sailing into the lush, deep currents waiting for me. But usually I don’t like to come home very much.
It’s not that we don’t live in a nice house, or that my life is a sad drudge I can’t stand to go back to. Nonetheless, this feeling has reappeared and even grown over the years, so I am used to it popping up, and I try to use it to my advantage.
Cruising along the winding Italian roads in July, I once again encountered my familiar holiday companion, and I consciously wondered what gift he had for me this time.
Going on holiday, putting my work and everyday routines on hold, I realized, was in fact an excellent occasion to look at my life from a little distance away and do a soul check: was I still doing what I wanted to be doing? Was I happy with the life I left behind and would be returning to shortly?
On the whole, the answer is yes. Over the last decade I have put a lot of work in finding my vocation and honing my craft. There are no major wharfs in my life that are in dire need of an overhaul or a sledgehammer. To the contrary, I feel I am ever more where I belong, on a path filled with art, creativity, soul encounters and servitude.
Then why was there that familiar nagging feeling again that I did not want this holiday to end, that I did not want to go back to Belgium, or to our house? It didn’t even have so much to do with my job, I realized, as with the feeling of the place.
Sure, the skies in Belgium can be a sad grey for a depressing number of days on end. We live in a moderate coastal climate, which means we suffer few extremes in temperature but get ample rain instead. But my unease was not about that either, really. After soaking up that much warmth and sunlight for two weeks (35 °C / 95 °F in the shade), the truth is I was saturated with it, and I honestly didn’t mind going back to some more clouds and even rain.
In one place we stayed, our hosts were a Belgian couple who had turned their holiday home into a permanent residence, and catered for guests in a small B&B. It was in a lovely Medieval village that he had visited ever since he was a kid, and she told us that the first time he took her there she cried when they had to leave. I didn’t want to go, she said. Everything within me wanted to stay. I felt I was being torn away from the place where I belonged, where my soul was at home.
That’s it, I guess.
I’m still looking for the place where my soul is at home.
I am not actively looking for it, but subconsciously I am hoping for it to appear in every village I enter, on every mountain I climb, or behind any bend in the road we happen to be on.
This is not an active search, but I do realize it is my soul’s quest for home. And I haven’t found it yet, that much is clear.
We were on the move more or less continuously for three weeks, counting our stop in France at my parents’. And by the end of it, both Chris and I were feeling travel weary. Not at all surprising, since we drove some 4,000 kilometers/2,500 miles in a relatively short period of time.
For once, I noticed, I didn’t mind going home. Or rather — landing. It would be good to settle into a familiar place that we liked, a nest from which we didn’t need to move.
It made this year’s homecoming a far more gentle and pleasant experience than it has been on previous occasions. And I do love our home, tucked away on its tiny, tree-covered plot. But I have come to realize that for my soul, it’s not quite home, and it probably never will be. It is a dear and lovely stop along the way.
And the moment I find that other place, the one I seem to be looking for, subconciously, continuously, I will know my quest is over.
I will steer my boat to the shore, land and stand on its soil, and never want to leave again.
