Becoming Home

Where is home?

I have been asking myself this question. Sometimes I fool myself into believing it could be anywhere or nowhere, implying a life beyond borders. Yet I remain curious about the root of this desire: Why must I pinpoint a specific location and call it home? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply choose a place and build one for me and my daughter?

When I went to London in July, the question became more specific: Could London be home? A binary question, I thought, ought to be easier to answer than one with infinite possibilities.

During my two weeks there, I met displaced souls from across the globe.

Among them was an older woman who had evacuated her home in Kyiv after the invasion. She had fled to Poland with her son and daughter-in-law before reaching London, where she was staying in the London home my dear Russian friend had opened to her while living in the United States. Her granddaughters, who had already settled in London, helped her escape. We shared her story through a mobile translation over a brunch she cooked for us, and then we fell silent—a quiet that became our preferred language.

I spoke with others from India, Bulgaria, China, the United States, and Ethiopia. Some said home was where their family lived; others tied it strictly to their birthplace. Some had adopted London as a second home, reserving the first for where they came from.

London certainly offered possibilities. Outside my friend’s apartment, a mother bird had built a nest in the corner of the balcony overlooking the oldest canal in the city. During my stay, I watched her two tiny chicks grow stronger each day.

With its lush green pockets tucked into urban density, history woven into modernity, and British traditions merging into a global pulse, London held space for polarities. It offered nourishment to curious souls.

Navigating from a metro station in an immigrant neighborhood to the gleaming financial district, or wandering through East London until I stumbled upon a hidden lake, I never felt like a stranger.

Seeing my cousin, who has built a life in London without letting go of her roots, reminded me that perhaps home doesn’t always replace another home—it can expand it.

I enjoyed different cuisines, cooked and served by people connected to the origins of the recipes. I laughed at stand-up performances by both British and international comedians.

I blended in. Even the reversed flow of traffic didn’t disorient me for long; I simply relied on instinct, choosing my path by reading the crowd’s rhythm.

This year, I have spent two of the past seven months in other people’s spaces—Airbnbs, friends’ and family’s guest rooms, and hotels. Every destination unlocked a more pronounced version of myself, though I always looked forward to returning to my small pink apartment in the green bustle of Istanbul, missing my own bed. Every layout, landscape, and culture invited a subtle rediscovery. Yet the question persisted in every city: Could this be home?Is where I live one?

So I zoomed in. I decided to make the question smaller. What if home was simply a place with four walls? I listed everything I do at home, only to realize I do many of those same things elsewhere: sitting in silence in a park, drawing in a quiet café, or simply enjoying my own company.

That led me deeper, to the ultimate container: my body.

Is my body home?

Lately, with persistent back pain and physical changes, it hasn’t offered much comfort. So what does home mean inside this physical frame?

Sitting with the discomfort in my back, an answer finally surfaced.

Home is where I feel secure, accepted, and comfortable. It is the place where I don’t need to perform, where I can stop pretending certain parts of myself don’t exist. Home is an abstract feeling of acceptance. When I am at ease in my own skin, a physical place that offers enough nourishment to sustain me and my daughter can become home.

By the time I left, the chicks were almost ready to fly. Their mother had chosen that corner as home until her babies were ready to fly. She never seemed concerned with whether it was the perfect place. It was simply the place that sheltered them long enough for them to grow.

Perhaps home is like that too. Not necessarily the place where we stay forever, but the place that gives us what we need until we are ready for whatever comes next.