Germany                   House Without a Roof            20 August 2024


   This evening, on my way to the grocery store, I noticed a high-rise
   building with a partially dismantled roof.  What a sight: a house
   without a roof!  I was so captivated by this sudden spectacle that I
   stopped for a minute or two to take it all in.  After all, people
   once lived there, right?  And now it's just a few thin walls of a box
   with nothing but sky above.  I live in a similar box right now.  And
   one day, the same fate will befall the box I call home.  Of course, I
   won't be there when it happens.

   A house without a roof.  Just think about it.  In that moment, it
   felt so strange, mainly because from a distance, the walls really did
   seem thin, like layers of plywood.  It looked as if a light breeze
   could topple this ridiculous structure.  For some reason, I suddenly
   felt a strong urge to be inside that building...  or rather, outside
   it, right?  On what is now the roof, though you can't really call the
   floor of an apartment a roof, can you?  But if there's no ceiling?
   Ah, who knows.  And can you even call that part of the building a
   house if it has no roof?  It's all just metaphors!

   I think this struck a chord with me because it resonated so well with
   my current state of mind.  Over the past few years, I've changed
   countries several times, and who knows what's next; I've completely
   lost the feeling of having a home.  No matter how much I want it
   back, it's gone.  Even my emotional connection to the house in my
   hometown of Ozyory is fading over time.  I fear that one day, when I
   can finally return there, I'll be horrified to find that it no longer
   feels like home.  There is no home anymore.  Nowhere.  That's why the
   image of a house without a roof struck such a deep chord with me.

   What's most curious is that I still can't explain to myself why home
   is so important to me.  Why do I still long to return to this
   phantom, non-existent place?  Or perhaps that place never existed at
   all and it's just my imagination?  After all, I don't want to return
   to the house in Ozyory right now.  I want to find a place where I'll
   feel at peace.  A place without the anxieties that surround me now.
   A place where I can finally rest.  There is no such place right now.
   There never was.  But there will be.  There absolutely will be.





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