The landscape that you inhabit shapes you in profound ways, prompting the question: Where is home, and what environment truly nurtures your joy, energy, and zest for life?
Recently, I returned to South Africa, revisiting the places that defined my childhood. The journey was deeply reflective, stirring memories and a realization: home is no longer where it once was.
While timeless landmarks like the mountains and rivers of the Drakensberg endure, everything shaped by human hands changes—and often, tragically, deteriorates.
In rural South Africa, essential infrastructure like roads, sanitation, water, and electricity has largely collapsed or is on the brink of failure. Political corruption has turned state institutions into feeding troughs for party loyalists, leaving what was once the pride of Africa’s railways and roads in disrepair.
The place of home can shift
Circumstances led me to leave my birthplace at a young age. For years, I lived and worked in Germany—a land tied to my ancestral roots but one I could never truly call home. The long, cold, and wet winters left me battling colds and flu for weeks, an unmistakable signal that my well-being needed a different environment.
At times I was terribly homesick, longing for the blue skies, expansive landscapes, sounds and smells of my African homeland. It is easy to fall into the trap of melancholy sadness of what once was and is no more, the past becoming an idealized and distorted image.
Finding the place in the sun
Seven years ago, I found my place under the sun in Mallorca, Spain. It wasn’t until then that I fully understood how deeply geography, culture, and community impacts not just physical health but mental vibrancy and energy.
Sometimes, choosing to live someplace else does change everything for the better, notwithstanding that you always take yourself with you. Home is ultimately within. Home is what creates a sense of belonging and purpose.
Feeling at home sometimes shifts as you grow, adapt, and explore the world. At times, it’s where you were born or raised, rooted in childhood memories and traditions. At other times, it’s where you feel most alive, inspired, and at peace—a place or state of mind that aligns with your values, dreams, and well-being.
Recently the most renowned South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach passed away in his home in Paris. In his prose, Breytenbach frequently explored how the home one remembers rarely aligns with the home one finds upon return. The landscapes may remain familiar, but the social, political, and personal contexts often shift dramatically.
Returning home can evoke a profound sense of loss—of the self that once belonged fully to that place and the home that no longer exists as it was. Returning to childhood landscapes can be a complex, bittersweet experience, marked by both longing and alienation.
In a poignant in his book “Return to Paradise”, Breytenbach reflects:
We carry our homes within us,
shaped by the stories of our scars.
The land may hold its silence,
but the roads remember our footsteps.
Where is the place where you can truly breathe and thrive?
What does home mean to you?
Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker
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