It’s raining as I stand in front of my parents’ house, holding my blue umbrella. A familiar place to “come home” to. Yet these days, I’m the one who makes the coffee, and I’m the one who brings the cake.
We’re talking about my parents’ biography: 135 pages about childhood, flight, displacement, and the building of a new life.
In moments like these, I feel a piece of home. Not completely, but unmistakably. Perhaps because my wife and I still live between worlds: between small town and big city, Black Forest character and airport proximity, Germany and Australia. This constant movement has long become part of my identity.
I was born into this small Swabian town where my parents began again. Standard German language at home (not the Swabian dialect), an outsider at school, accepted on the football field. That’s where my understanding began that home is less a place and more a feeling that grows out of relationships.
Today I know: home doesn’t simply appear. It is made. Researchers call this “becoming at home”, an active shaping of belonging. Our little holiday apartment, just a short walk from our parents’ houses, is an expression of that: closeness and independence at the same time.
Reading my parents’ life story, I discover traces that lead to me. Their paths shaped my possibilities. And my years abroad, my professional travels, the movement between continents All of it weaves into this larger fabric.
Perhaps that’s the essence: home is not a state you return to. Home is a process that changes because I change. A space I actively shape.
>> To shape the future, it helps to understand the past.
>> To shape home, it’s necessary to live the present consciously.
And now, I am interested: What does home mean to you, and where do you actively create it?
I am Bernd Scharbert. As an author, mentor, and companion to leaders, I work with exactly these questions: How do we find belonging in a world that is constantly in motion? And how do we bring family, work, and life into a rhythm that feels true to who we are.
If this resonates with you, I’d be glad to continue the conversation.
