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Since the middle of the pandemic, I have been participating in the Amateo project “Postcard from Home”. It consists of exchanging hand-made cards and letters with the topic which is HOME. In the first stage, we wrote what home is for us, then what was and what home will be. People from all over Europe were selected randomly. I am corresponding with Paulien from the Netherlands and although the project is slowly coming to the end, we decided to keep our exchanging cards and letters.

What is home for you?

At first, this correspondence made me wonder what is home for me. And since I am an emigrant, the answer to this question is not obvious. I think sometimes it is not clear for us, even if we live all our lives in one country. Because the home can also be a feeling, or longing, something beyond the four walls. I have the impression that we often carry the house inside ourselves. It is a sense of being safe, privacy, love, but also connection. For me, the strange thing is that everything I had in Wrocław (in my previous home) was also found in Galway. So the house flows out of us somehow, moving doesn’t change everything.

Home can travel

The fact is that my home travels. I have moved many times in my life but I have created a similar atmosphere in every place. For example the curtains in funny clouds, candles, books, a cat on my lap, a special cup of morning coffee, a blue bicycle, a scream of seagulls, a turquoise ocean and a blue door. Yes, my future home will have a blue door.

Now I am getting ready for my next move and looking for a new place. I’ve seen two houses from my dreams, but sometimes it’s impossible to buy something on the run, technically. However, I have a feeling that the right house will wait for me and find itself. Because now, although I am writing these words at a small table, in a rented apartment, I have the feeling of a home even not perfect but part of my life, and always interesting stop.

Freedom without expectations

When I design a card for Paulien, I pay attention to the details, cut out Conemara’s hills from the paper, make a sheep by crotchet from wool. I am slowing down, freeing myself from expectations. I want to wait, even though I feel impatient. When I finally see a vintage envelope with an interesting figure, and the words Holland on it under my blue door, I get excited. I take out a card with a forest and a giant mosquito. Justa writes to me in the e-mail: expect the shipment. A small envelope with a heart is also on the way to Lilka. So if you read the cards and letters the post I wrote before, it is an amazing connection for me with someone who is far away.

I intentionally do not include a picture of my last poscard. I never do that. Because the card was made for a special person, and I want to her discover it first.

What is home for you? What was home for you? What will it be? Please, share yur thoughts here in the comments, I’m very curious.

Cover photo by Jacqueline Macou.