EP 32 — Finding Home in the Smallest Habits

Transcript

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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Almost Local podcast. I'm Maria, and as usual, I'm podcasting from Auckland, New Zealand. So today is a lovely winter day here, and we are enjoying quite a mild weather here in Auckland. So I'm happy to be back with a new episode of the podcast, continuing what I was sharing last week. So last week, I shared a very personal episode because it marked one year since we moved back to New Zealand. In that episode, I spoke about something I hadn't expected. That is coming back home, the place we called and decided to call home here in New Zealand, didn't feel like coming back to my old life. I talked about habits. I talked about, uh, Atomic Habits, the book I'm reading, uh, by James Clear, I shared about my habits, about the public library, about riding my bike in the Netherlands, something I've been talking, uh, quite a lot in the past, um, during the past year, about how the small things we repeat quietly become part of who we are. At the end of the episode, and in last week's reflections, I'm sharing every two weeks, um, my reflections as, uh, our Almost Local newsletter, which of course you are welcome to subscribe. I asked one simple question. That question was: What's one small habit that makes you feel most like yourself wherever you are in the world? And I wasn't expecting many replies, but the replies I received made me realize something beautiful. So the first reply came from Dani, one of Almost Local members, and she replied with just one word: meditation. That was it. No explanation needed, because for her, meditation isn't just something she does. It's something that reminds her who she is. Then Sharon wrote something that moved me. She said, and I quote, "For me, it's singing traditional Irish folk songs that my dad taught me almost 40 years ago." So think about that, 40 years ago. Different country, different life, and yet those Irish songs still connect her to herself. Then Andrea replied too, not with a habit, but with a sentence from the book "The things we repeat become the evidence of who we believe we are." She told me how much that resonated. And then Iris told me she cooks traditional food from home because it reminds her of her family and brings her a sense of comfort, which often happens so much with food. So different people, different countries, and different rituals, and yet they all pointed to the same idea. So it made me realize that maybe home isn't only a place, which is something that I've been realizing lately quite often. Maybe home is also something we do. We often think we carry home in our memories, or in photographs, or in the language we speak, but perhaps we also carry home in our rituals. The tea we always drink, the songs we sing, meditation, going to the library, running every morning, calling mom every Sunday, cooking the same recipe your grandmother taught you. These things look so ordinary, but they are the invisible threads connecting us to ourselves, especially when everything else changes One of the things living abroad has taught me is that countries change us. Sometimes we lose habits. Sometimes we discover new ones. I lost my weekly trips to the library when I moved to the Netherlands, but I found other ways to stay connected to books. Then I discovered cycling. That became part of me too. Coming back to New Zealand, I realized I couldn't recreate that habit exactly, but maybe that's okay. Maybe belonging isn't about recreating our old life perfectly because that's not really possible. Maybe it is about asking, which parts of myself do I want to carry forward? And also, what new parts am I ready to discover? So today's Almost Local truth is: the smallest habits often carry our biggest sense of home, not because they are important on their own, but because they quietly remind us who we are, especially when we are building a life between cultures. So I'd love to leave you with another question. Not what's your favorite habit? But what part of home have you carried with you without even realizing it? Maybe it's a recipe, maybe it's a song, maybe it's a morning ritual, a way you make your coffee, a prayer, a walk, a conversation with someone you love. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear your story. Just send me an email or reply to the biweekly newsletter or reflections. Because something I've realized this week is that Almost Local isn't just about me sharing stories anymore. It's about creating a place and a space where we can share them together. So thank you so much for listening, again. I will see you in the next episode. Take care, and wherever you are in the world, keep becoming Almost Local. And now, as usual, I'm off to my morning coffee