I'm coming home...

Nick Verhagen - Perspectives on Past, Present and Future

Last week I wrote I was welcoming chaos back into my life and instantly was met with its great force. Within all the upheaval it caused and while I was addressing its consequential changes, I felt the struggle of continuing to do my routines, felt the impact it had on my motivation and sought to stick to the resolutions I set for myself. Now I don’t feel my substack, and my continuous offering of my perspectives to you, my subscribers, has suffered from it, a reason for which I find in my outspoken commitment to this sort-of weekly sharings, yet I feel I go through a cycle of wanting to share more short burst-like inspirations (like my poem ‘I see now’). And so, I think this week’s post will be a bit shorter, but let’s see….

Within all the ensuing chaos, however, big decisions were made. When you find all the constants in your life, like routines, like the standard prerequisites for living (roof over head/visas/etc), up in the air, life is asking for you to see. To see all these interruptions and disruptions are an opportunity for you to change. To make changes to your life. Changes which you never before saw as possible. As they did for me. So last few weeks, together with my partner, I have focused on catching our constants floating in the air, but also to simultaneously see them from a whole new perspective. And I saw, we saw, major changes looming on the horizon. Through reclaiming the status quo of our small agenda in life, we noticed the need for change in our shared big agenda, and because of this we decided to leave Bali. 

Photo by Cyril Saulnier; model: yours truly

Now is not the time for me to share about the reasons for leaving, or the reasons that led us to leave the potential palace and commit to greater things (read: ‘into commitment…). For this, there is another place and time. I, however, do want to share with you the feelings I was left with after making this massive decision. Because, you see…as with all those resulting from big decisions, these feelings are mixed.

On the one hand…

Some months ago I stepped aboard a vision, seeing myself return to a place I called home. I longed, and still long, to see my family and friends. I longed to have known ground below my feet. I longed for order, cleanliness and stability and for the first time in months I suffered from a mild but clear case of homesickness. 

Yet, on another…

Now I made this decision to go home I still long for all this, but too see all things lost to me. I see the beauty of Bali. It’s beaches, surfing and palm trees. It’s most inspiring and openminded community. I will miss its exotic energy, constantly pushing you forward and into change. I will miss new friends, new old friends, and parts of me that feel at home in these surroundings. And thus I know, that once I returned to Europe, I will be homesick once again. 

All this attests to the fact that the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s a real cliche but also one rather true. Which made me reflect on what ‘Homecoming’ really means to me. And thought of a time when a lovely friend, I acquainted on the island, introduced me to the old Irish folklore song called Spancil Hill, by Michael Considine. She sang this song for me and other friends when she was bound to leave the island, and to return to Ireland. She spoke of the singer, tormented by illness, and his wish to return to his homelands, and to be reunited with his first love, his family and friends and to, once more, walk the lands he called ‘home’. Yet, as she started to sing its words, drifting on its mesmerising cadence, I did not listen to the words but to the feelings it instilled in me. I felt to be reconnected to parts of myself long forgotten, of lives lived long before, and felt a deep sense of home coming. It was as if its melody, beautifully sang by this soulful woman, struck a chord never to be unheard by me. 

By reflecting on this moment, and on the song, I realised something even more profound. And that is that through experiencing our outer world, whether it is through sound, taste or smell (or one of the other three senses), we experience our inner world. At times, when walking through life, I feel the distinct sound of a familiar chord struck or experience the feeling of resonance - of sounding true. And in a moment like this, reminded by something earlier experienced in life, or lived through in past lives, I come home. A part or piece within me has been touched and the feeling it leaves will never leave me. And so, I see now, it does not matter whether I leave Bali and return to the Netherlands, or will experience home sickness because of longings I have to their place-specific privileges. What matters is that within these different places, as I hoard the cravings long unsatisfied, I choose to come home. I decide to come home to self, and acknowledge every part within me,
the old,
the new, 
those long forgotten
those before lying dormant
the ones changed
the ones committed to anew
the ones true

Last years, as I wrote before, I have come to reconnect to self to a degree I cannot turn back or go back to times passed. I have not changed as most of the discomfort I challenged merely made me remember the parts forgotten. Those already within me from birth, or developed without my knowledge. Those pushed away by me, or pulled from me by others. I see change not as something added to your being, but simply as you being reminded of the truth lying within you. And so, as long as I move through life with a determination and desire to make commitments that move me forward, felt to the fullest by the full me, by all parts of me, I will always be home. And through the fulfilment of my constant and ever-present wish to self-actualise myself I come closer to home, closer than any plane, car or scooter could bring me. 

So soon as I will board the plane, like I envisioned myself aboard visions during bouts of home sickness, I will return not as a changed man, but one, at last, reminded of his innate manliness. As a man who, years ago left his stable surroundings, to return to one fully aligned. As a man who once left himself because of his surroundings and for the false sense promised by these other surroundings, and to be home with self. So, with this knowledge, with this in my luggage, I will step aboard the intercontinental flight and will welcome the idea of leaving Bali for now, but only to travel onwards to places that feel most aligned for me (HOME!) and that will bring me closer to my truth, so as to share it with you. 

Thanks for reading this enlightenment and for giving the opportunity to openly share with you my internal processes and the feelings resulting from these. I will write to you soon of my forthcoming endeavours, and future perspectives, so you can be inspired in your journey to come closer to self. As for now, I end with saying, I enjoy walking into the void and will always support you in the wanderings that will bring you closer to yourself! If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe! It’s great to know I, too, am supported in my journeys home. 

See you soon, supporters! Cheers!

Yours truly,

Nick

PS: the song I wrote about is called ‘Spancill Hill’ and the version most resonant to me is the one sang by Dan McCabe. You can find it here: