Sometimes, a familiar guest pays a visit.
Its name is Reflection.
We sit down and talk about the “old days.”
After it leaves, I clear away the coffee cups. And I usually make a list.
Where did our paths cross?
The list of my homes is incomplete. It is already long enough just recalling the places I have direct memories of; I am not cataloging here the places known only from family stories—the beginning of the tale.
Aka. An outlier right from the start. I am not certain if I have actual memories tying me there. I can visualize the scene, but I cannot tell if photographs or perhaps later visits are playing tricks on my mind.
Dávod. A rented room in Uncle Miska’s house. Here, the image of the kindergarten comes to mind. And a street. A shop. Real memories. From this point on, there is no doubt.
Dávod. Company housing. Primary school. First and second grades.
Pusztaszabolcs. More and more faces and memories. Teachers. Streets. Primary school. From third through sixth grade.
Bábolna. Company housing.
Bábolna. Our own family home. Primary school—the final two grades. A wealth of experiences. Acquaintances. I have always lived near this town; the bond is no coincidence.
Komárom. My grandparents’ house. I spent my high school years here—except for weekends, when I was usually at my parents’ home.
Bábolna. I spent my college years and my first two years of work living in my parents’ home.
Szőny. The first move to establish my own household—into my future wife’s parents’ house.
Komárom. The apartment, part of which I built with my own hands.
Nagyigmánd. The house, part of which I built with my own hands.
Nagyigmánd. A rental. Once again, the odd one out. Amidst the turbulent storm of a divorce, it is hard to call this a home.
Győr. A rental. 28 months. That was home; of that, I have no doubt.
Győr. My own apartment. Home, sweet home.
Győr. Briefly, a home amidst the ruins of a relationship.
Bábolna. My younger brother’s place became my last home in Hungary.
Asia. This is my home in the world today.
No Turning Back
I hadn’t previously stopped to ask myself why those places I mentioned no longer called to me. I simply accepted that they didn’t—and that was that.
Recently, I discussed this with my friend Reflection.
Aka. Dávod. Pusztaszabolcs. They are far away. Familiar, yet foreign. We never spent enough time together to forge deep friendships.
Bábolna. For 38 years, I lived within a 30-kilometer radius of this town. Komárom, Nagyigmánd, and Győr all lie in its vicinity.
My childhood home is there, and there it will remain. I always go back there thinking of it as home; I feel at home in every corner of it. Yet, for 26 years, it hasn’t been the place where I actually live. My childhood home still calls to me—I suppose that will never change. But I haven’t pictured myself living in Bábolna for a long time.
My younger brother and his family shared their home with me before I left the country. It was a period of nine months. I think it was the best possible arrangement before setting out to see the world. Close to my childhood home. Surrounded by daily affection. And right in the center of things. In Bábolna.
Komárom—and Szőny, since Szőny is part of Komárom. I always loved this town. I’ve known it since childhood. But that love faded. I lived elsewhere; I experienced different things. And years ago, the answer came without a question: I would never live there again.
Győr at the end. I truly loved that city. And my own apartment there, too. But that love vanished in a matter of days. All of it. At the time, I felt I would never be able to live there again. I still feel that way today.
Scents. Images. Memories.
My friend – Reflection – asked a lot of questions just now, for some reason. And I just kept telling stories, on and on.
Aka. The little semi-detached house at the edge of the woods. The deep snows of the Bakony. The proximity of the cowshed. The scent of the forest. Gathering acorns in the woods. Perhaps it was this village that laid the foundation for my love of nature. It was here that I began to get to know my older younger brother.
Dávod. Uncle Miska’s house. I don’t remember the place ever feeling unfamiliar. I do remember, however, that this was where I first felt responsible for others as a child. Julcsi wanted to chop wood with an axe. My older younger brother wanted to build a wooden fortress. They both did what they had set their minds to; my brother nearly lost a finger in the process.I was a preschool-aged child; I didn’t know I could have stopped them. But perhaps I thought about it afterwards.
Dávod. The official residence. The gang. We were like the *Pál utcai fiúk*. We had a battle cry. We had an identity. We had an enemy: the kids from the next street over. There was even a war. And this was where I wanted to build a spaceship. This was where I learned to write. This was where I first fell in love—yes, back in kindergarten. By then, I wanted to be an explorer of the world, though the teacher, unfortunately, wouldn’t let me into the school attic. This was where I learned to ride a bike.
Pusztaszabolcs. This was where I started reading. A lot. By then, I wanted to be an architect. This was where I graduated from *Kisdobos* (Junior Drummer) to *Úttörő* (Pioneer). This was where I started learning Russian. From this point on, I have memories involving specific faces and names. I moved away from here while in love, too. The girl never knew. I wrote a few letters in chalk for her on the back of one of the school buildings, but I fear no one ever deciphered them. It was here that I first encountered the works of Gerald Durrell. We had long since moved away when I completed my first Silva Method course. During the training, we had to devise or choose an ideal place for relaxation; mine has been in Pusztaszabolcs ever since. It was here that I got to know my younger sister.
Bábolna. A company-provided apartment. The scent of a new home. The gleaming emptiness of cleanliness, the echoing sound of an unfurnished flat. That sense of wonder only something new can reveal. By the time I arrived here, I knew I would become a naturalist. There was room in the room for a nutria skull and a mouflon skull, too. Friendships and acquaintances formed here that have lasted to this day. And then, of course, there are the countless memories spanning thirty-eight years. It was here I discovered Depeche Mode—to add a little more weight to the passage of time. It was here that I got to know my younger brother.
Bábolna. Our own family home. Remodeling, building, renovating. An exciting time. The house changed a great deal. I am at home in every corner of it—and I know every corner, too. From the front and from the back. Every scent is familiar. I know exactly when the scents changed. I remember every alteration. I see the traces of my own hand in many places—just as I see the handprints of my younger siblings in the concrete. I hear the dogs barking; I see them running toward me. One after another—because there was only ever one at the house at a time. I can smell the smoke from countless bacon roasts and *bogrács* stews, and taste the delicious food.
Komárom. My grandparents’ house. I remember the brick I carried to the wall—back when I was still in kindergarten. I can taste the cherries—we always ate them in lethal quantities. I see the small house, beside which the large one was built. I am there on the massive sand pile—transformed into a sandcastle—with my cousin. The roof appears—the one I raised higher with my grandfather to make room for my pigeons. I see all the joys of my first true love and feel every tear on my face for it. Every season of those high school years—spent in the kind of carefree happiness granted to me—flashes before my eyes all at once. Just as the two faces of death appear here, too. I can feel the biting cold—five degrees—from when I slept in this empty house in winter, without heating. I know every street in the town. For a long time, I knew most of the people, too—at least by sight.
Bábolna. College years and my first jobs. I set off on a path different from the one I had walked before. New connections. People drifting away. Greater distances. A different budget. The struggle to make a living. The first disappointment at work. Then the second. The first serious steps toward an independent life. Gaining experiences that could never be repeated. It was good to be in a familiar place back then. The town sheltered me while life hammered the new reality into me.
Szőny. It was tough. My fiancée went abroad for three months, and I stayed with her family. Voluntary solitude, conflicts, waiting for her return. Perhaps this is the only home of mine that doesn’t evoke pleasant memories. Only the stark facts remain.
Komárom. The apartment. The joy of having something truly my own. Work that ennobles. Responsibility. Creativity. The smell of fresh paint. Parking my first truly own car in front of the building. Replacing kitchen units cobbled together from monitor boxes with real furniture. The hum of the first range hood. And the arrival of our first daughter. This apartment speaks of her most often. Here, I experienced what it means to be a father. Here, too, I experienced the wonder of the new—more than once.
Nagyigmánd. The land told so many stories while we built the house. I can still sense the rural scent of the fading day when we would rest after a long shift, simply gazing at the progress we had made. I can picture the moment we settled all our belongings into the big house. How empty it felt, even though everything we owned was inside. Well, almost everything. Because our younger daughter was the one who truly made that house a home when she arrived. That house—with all its beauty and joy—was where I was happiest. It was the last place the four of us lived together.
Nagyigmánd. A rental. I moved there with my older daughter. That home marked a new chapter in both our lives. For six months, we tried to make something out of an impossible situation—out of a hollow void. We didn’t give the house time to tell much of a story. Yet, a story speaks to me from there today. “Dad, don’t you think we’ve had enough of Nagyigmánd? There’s nothing here. Can’t we move?” “Where would you go, my dear?” That is how we ended up moving to Győr.
Győr. A rental. Twenty-eight months. It was a home; of that, I have no doubt. A new school for my daughter. A new job for me. A new relationship for both of us. COVID. Problems and joys. Relationships smoothing out. More than two years spent finding ourselves. For my daughter, it was the first time; for me, it was one of many. Family dynamics slowly settled, too. My own life became happy.
Győr. Our own apartment. Home, sweet home. My daughter and I looked at only one apartment when the idea of buying came up. Fifteen minutes later, I made an offer. We loved that apartment dearly. For me, that feeling has passed. But while it lasted, I loved every room, knew every corner, and took pleasure in keeping it tidy. I had finally come home.
Győr. Home to the ruins of a relationship—for a short while. Short. From there, I could no longer go back to my own apartment. Something had been lost.
Bábolna. It was a sweet feeling to be part of a family again—with children around, and all the dynamics, drama, joy, tears, and laughter. I was already preparing to move on, but I truly cherished those many months.
Home is within me
So, there is no place I would go back to.
I have no home.
But there are nearly twenty places I once called home.
All those places are within me now. That is what I told my friend, Reflection.
Home is within me. With all the warmth it has ever held.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
Linktree
Short introduction