Whispers of Home

Every morning, I start my day with a small ritual—brewing some herbal Arabic coffee and letting its rich aroma fill the house. Only then do I sink into the couch, warm mug in hand, ready to embrace the quiet before the world wakes up. There’s something about that first sip—the way it lingers, grounding me in the present. As the world outside still sleeps, I steal this quiet moment for myself, reading a book or absentmindedly watching TV while the sun slowly paints the sky.

Growing up in Australia, far from my family’s roots, my parents worked hard to keep our Arab Palestinian culture alive. We spoke the language, cooked the food, and filled our home with music and television from back home. Despite the distance, I rarely felt disconnected. My sense of identity was deeply embedded in our home life—woven into the smells of our kitchen, the cadence of our conversations, the traditions that shaped my upbringing. Even in a foreign land, I always felt like I belonged.

But moving out and now living alone, that certainty wavers—not in my love for my culture, but in the absence of its daily presence. Without the familiar sounds of my father's voice speaking Arabic in the next room or the scent of my mother's cooking filling the air, I sometimes wonder where I truly belong. It’s not in the noise of daily life that I feel it, but in the silence—the in-between moments, at dawn and dusk, when the world quiets down and I’m left with only my thoughts. That’s when I notice the distance most, like a gentle but persistent ache.

I’ve always been someone who romanticized movement, the idea of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once. As a child, I was drawn to stories of explorers and wanderers, fascinated by the idea of a life untethered. The thought of constantly moving felt exhilarating—proof of a life lived fully. But as I’ve grown, I’ve started to see the other side of it too. The excitement of new places comes with the quiet ache of leaving pieces of myself behind, of always being slightly out of sync with the places I land. But the truth is, in all this moving, all this searching for freedom, there are days when I feel unmoored. When the rituals I once took for granted—hearing Arabic spoken in the background, the scent of my mother’s cooking wafting through the house—become memories instead of everyday comforts.

I wonder sometimes if this longing is just part of the trade-off, the price of a life spent in transit. The freedom to move, to explore, to create a life unbound comes with an undercurrent of solitude, a quiet yearning for the familiar. I gain the world, but at times, I lose the warmth of roots, the ease of knowing exactly where I fit. Maybe home is not a single place but a collection of moments, stitched together from different corners of the world. Maybe belonging isn’t about staying still, but about carrying pieces of home wherever I go.

And so, I hold onto the little things—the familiar taste of Arabic coffee, the enriching and grounding scent of bakhoor incense burning through the house, curling into the air like a quiet whisper of home, the mornings that are mine alone. Even in the farthest places, these small acts remind me of who I am. Maybe, for now, that’s enough.