I left Lebanon as soon as I completed my university studies, and since then, the distance between us has only grown. With time, the memories blur, like images once sharp now softened by the weight of years. At times, I wonder where home truly is, only to be met with silence. The idea of home becomes something fluid, intangible, shifting with each new place I step into. Is it a physical space, or does it live in the sensations, the echoes of what once was? I find myself searching, retracing my steps in memories, yet the answers remain elusive.
And when I do remember, it is never the big moments that come back to me, but the smallest details, fragments of a childhood that defined home in ways I never realized then. The scent of jasmine necklaces hanging from our necks after we labored to make them in the garden. The rough bark of the Akkadinyi tree. The strange comfort of the damp moss on the rocks after the rain. The way the light shimmered through seawater when I looked up from underwater. The smell of my swimsuit, packed away all winter, carrying with it the salty breath of summers past. The warmth of pancakes cooked by my mother. The crisp snap of volcanic stones we struck together to make fire. These are the moments that tether me to a place I once called home, even as it drifts further into the haze of time.
So perhaps home is not a fixed location, but rather, a constellation of feelings, sensations, and fleeting connections. It is a collection of stories woven into the fabric of who we are, carried with us no matter how far we roam. It is the smell of first rain, the taste of tiny strawberries from my mother’s garden, the jump rope poised in the air before the game begins. It is not the place I left behind, but the essence of what made it mine. And maybe, just maybe, home is something I can never truly lose—because it has always lived within me.