| name | value |
| location | Melbourne |
| date | 2025-07-24 |
| dateFormat | dd-mmm-yyyy |
| slug | Home |
Home is where the heart belongs.
I’ve been liking this sentence for however long since the first time I heard an ancient Chinese poem recited out loud when I was in Melbourne.
It’s a cliche now that home is not a building but a concept, could also just be a feeling, a sentiment, etc etc.
But can we be more specific? Can we name the moments when we feel our heart belongs?
It’s been 8 whole weeks since I felt a spark of genuine joy. At the time I wrote: My appetite for reading is back, fully back. Bought a new book yesterday and (finally) opened The Empusium today.
I always feel positive about my consistency; it puts familiarity in context. Today I again felt joy, as I held the four new books I bought. It never gets old. From the moment when buying books had become a thing, it has always brought me joy for the entirety of my life thus far.
Familiarity, the measure of which quantifies the feeling of home.
A familiar writer, a familiar scent, a familiar music, a familiar ritual.
Amongst the four books one of them is The White Book by Han Kong, one of my favourite writers of all time. Even though it is the English translation I was reading, in-between lines I was struck by a familiar sadness, the strong undercurrent rushing ashore. Taking me with it as it retreats, now I am afloat, in this space of words, phrases, sentences, and voices of my own as well as others’.
It feels like home. Han’s writing quietly stirs up in me something that sits at the depressed or merely sad end of emotion; it is familiar; it feels safe.