What is home? Is it just four walls? Maybe also the surrounding yard or the stairwell. The building, the street, the neighborhood, or even an entire city? Or maybe this is a more abstract concept at all? For me, home is a place where I can be myself, without masks, without trying to impress anyone, without fear. A place where I can be relaxed and free, a place I like to return to.
It turns out that I have quite a few places around the world where I feel at home. And yet, there is one piece of land, for which I have a special place in my heart. Four streets, and in particular, what is between them. A place where I spent countless hours, learning, succeeding, and failing, a place full of childhood experiences, a place where I know every inch of space, a place I know better than the back of my hand (because who looks at the palm of their hand so much anyway?).
As a child, this was my and my friends' home playground, where we would play a combination of catch and hide and seek, run all day in the sun and sometimes in the rain, hide in bushes, climb trees, jump over fences, fall, get scratched, sometimes injured, always get dirty and again, from the beginning, on the following day.
It's been years since I've lived here and so has everyone who shared that experience, the memories have faded, the details have disappeared, the people who today fill these streets and alleys have changed and yet, every time I pass by the place my heart skips a beat and my soul smile.

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