Home is where the heart is

Home is where the heart is

I was born in Utrecht (the Netherlands). I did not choose this, just as I had no say in the moves my family and I made to the USA and France in the following years.

At five years old, I sat on the kitchen counter of our house in the Netherlands, with my legs dangling and a pear in my hands. I announced "I don't feel at home anymore" as I watched how my mother carefully placed our belongings in boxes around me.

When I think back to this moment, now more then twenty years later I smile at the naivety of this child's observation. I cannot say for certain, if it's  the many moves, the hello's and goodbye's or the letting go and opening up again that have made me realize that feeling at home is not about your surroundings. But it has been quite some time now that the saying : home is where the heart is" has a new meaning to me.

Home is where my heart is. As long as I am true to myself I can feel at home with any person, at any location.

A few weeks ago my grandmother passed away. A beautiful woman, inside and out with whom I differed in 60 years of age. In one of my last memories of her, I came to visit her in her apartment. She was preparing a sandwich and as she sliced a tomato and carefully placed it on some cheese she told me about a quote she had heard on the radio and liked very much:

“The Secret To Finding Happiness Lies In Your Ability To Find Contentment.”

I believe that through this nomadic way of life that I am living, like a bird soaring through a life of my own choosing, knowing that I am at home with myself always, I have found true happiness.

Visit www.goingvanywhere.com to for more of my vanlife adventures on the road!

Illustration from my book "Kleine Vos, op zoek naar Overal en Nergens" (Written together with Ru de Groen) that will be published in March 2019.