Author: Theresa
Date: 15.04.2019
„It is time to go home!“ – This is a sentence we heard a lot on the Azores when people asked which stop would be our next one. It is an expression used incredibly often these days, but to be honest, when I heard this sentence it made me quite emotional and inquisitive. At first I was not sure if I should approve or not. Is it really time to go home now?
I remembered the moment when we were on our first longer trip in Panama. On our last day ashore, I did not say: „Tomorrow we will be back on the Thor.“. Instead of that I just thought: „Tomorrow we will be back home.“ To be honest, it really surprised me that I perceived the Thor as my home and that I felt the truth of this sentence so deeply in me that the phrase just slipped out. Indeed, I felt so confident being ‘home’ again on the ship, because I remembered all the things which did not change even when I had left it for three weeks while exploring Panama. We experienced many things in these weeks, learned more and saw many things that we had never seen before. However, the same routines were still there after all the new experiences. It gave us all such a good feeling about coming home, having watch and being back at sea.
After this situation, many questions flooded my mind: So, what should I call the place where I come from? Where my family and my friends live? What does ‘Home’ mean for me? Or what does ‘Home’ mean in general? After talking to the other KuSis I noticed that almost everyone has had these thoughts in the past. Indeed, we all had these days, when we missed our home in Germany, our families and friends or just some little things, of which we never expected before that we would miss them. But at the same time, we all felt very bond to this ship that brought us safe from place to place.
Six months ago when we started our journey, we all knew that the ship was going to be ‘our home’ for the next half year, but we could not imagine what it would feel like to have a sailing ship as a home. „Home is where the heart is.“ is a quote commonly known from postcards and from what I have experienced in the past six months I can assure you that I totally approve. During our life on the Thor, we never really stayed in the same place, but while crossing the ocean, which connected all the places we travelled to, we stayed ‘at home’ in a way. In the last half year we woke up, we ate and experienced all the things, everyday together. Now, it feels quite normal to be together with these people all the time. At some point I realized that I would have two homes from now on. Now it is difficult for us to realize that in a few days we will be back in our own rooms at the place where we used to live before we came on the Thor, once again united with our family and friends that we all missed a lot.
Coming back to the question raised in the beginning, I do admit that it is time to go home now. I am
looking forward to all the things that I have missed in the past months and I am happy that I gained
another home that I will come back to one day.