A hometown is where your soul sets on fire.

You may have heard stories of an amazing experience your friend had while travelling, or maybe a family member might have just got back from their vacation with amazing stories from a town that they absolutely loved (and this would obviously be before our new-world order with covid19 travelling restrictions), or perhaps there is something about travelling to a specific country and exploring it that is appealing to you. You might feel at home in a town you were born in. For some of us there is really no denying that a hometown is not always a town we were born in to call it home, nor a town we moved to at some point in our life. Sometimes that town is a place, where for the first time, your soul sets on fire.

I imagined this town to be a place where I would fall in love again, and that when I did, everything there would feel like home. My idea of falling in love is when everything within me and around me aligns, when the moon tilts and the stars shine. A hometown is a place where you feel present, still, and tranquil. A place that you cannot fathom to describe until it happens for you – not until you feel that desire within. The town I call home is where everything is peaceful and still. It is simple, bliss, and beautiful. It is a Eastern European country Montenegro; a Balkan country with rugged mountains, medieval villages and a narrow strip of beaches along its Adriatic coastline. The Bay of Kotor, resembling a fjord, is dotted with coastal churches and fortified towns such as Kotor, Budva, and Herceg Novi. Durmitor National Park, home to bears and wolves, encompasses limestone peaks, glacial lakes and 1,300m-deep Tara River Canyon. This was my magical hometown where the love I feel within me is, for the first time ever, very real.

If a hometown were a metaphor it would be like the waves of movement crawling gently to shore and fresh wind nipping at my face. A dreamy sea as its own master – the sound of waves gently drenching the sand reaching out with its' angelic hand, sprucing the frequency of light as if it is reaching to give you a virtual hug. If hometown were a sound it would be silent and it would be singing a song. If you could hear it, it would be romantic music playing in the background from the nearest café, and if it were a color it would be the rippling colors of an orangey-grey sunset summer sky. If it were an emotion, the ancient architecture would speak a language of ancestry and history, and the feeling of debilitating heartache would smell earthy and spring-like when blossoming. It would taste like seasonal fruit and coconuts. You would find a lot of love in the way you decorated your home, the next book you are eager to read, and in every bite of the tasty food you eat. The smell of the salty Adriatic Sea would linger and provoke your taste buds, leaving a scent of beach sand in your hair. You would start to create your own world of love. You would find love in everything that you do and say, and in everything that you are. Luxury of this magical hometown would forever remain within you, and you would be able to take this hometown everywhere with you. Wouldn’t that be great? You would speak and breathe the language of love; it may be about others or even when talking about you. You would give yourself a break from self-judgement and you would begin to trust yourself within everything that you do – your book of hometown would be written right before you. Looking up through your lashes you would be bold, fierce, and true. You would forgive yourself and let go of any doubt that you cannot really be you.

A hometown is a place where everything feels like home, and where you feel more real than you have ever felt up until this day – a place where you feel like you fell in love all over again, except this time, you fell in love with yourself. You will discover your hometown the moment you find beauty within you; a magical place you will call home, and it will be where the new “you” is born.”