And yet for someone these streets are home

And yet for some people these streets are home. They live here, walk the same streets year after year, know their neighborhoods by heart—where they grew up, went to school or work. For some, this is their homeland; they stroll here, along these streets, meet each other, go on dates, propose marriage, go to the movies or visit each other's homes.

Many leave and may not show up here for a very long time—years may pass without them seeing this beach, without them meeting the sunrise or seeing off the sunset here. But when they return after a long absence, they are undoubtedly filled with a sense of joy from being able to breathe this air again, to see these trees that have become dear over the years they lived here, the familiar fruit seller—aged, perhaps—whom they came to for their purchases 10 years ago.

They leave, and the place seems to lose something. But when they return, the place, having missed them, seems to come alive. It speaks to them; a silent but sensitive conversation takes place between them. For they, too, have missed it—the place where they lived for so long, which gave them so many happy, vivid, living memories.

They appear here and then leave again. But memories—that is what will always accompany them, wherever they are. They change, but the place remains the same. It does remain, don't you agree?

It's as if you're coming back from a long journey, during which so much happened to you, and you notice how time seems to have stopped, frozen on pause. As if to tell you that it has been waiting for you all this while.

But you won't return. Not unless it's for a short while. Now you are a guest in your old home, and your new home from now on lies in a different plane. And it's not even about a place, but precisely about a plane—or you are still searching for it and have no home yet.

Something in you has changed, and something else has left forever. But I don't know what would have to happen for your essence to change. In my opinion, your essence is precisely that which remains unchanged regardless of circumstances. Wherever you are, whatever happens to you, you are the same person looking at the world with the same eyes as 10, 20, 30, 100, a million years ago. But you can look unrecognizably different. People will stop recognizing you—so greatly can you change. And I'm not talking about external changes now. But you know for sure that you are the same as before...

E.

P.S.: this post is a subjective expression of a feeling the author often experiences upon returning to his hometown, and is, of course, not the truth.