When a Place Becomes Home
The Heart of Leaving
In 20 days, I will leave Pokhara. In just a few more days, I will leave Nepal.
How do I even begin to explain this love affair?
I should be savouring every moment, living these precious weeks to the fullest, and of course, I am. Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, there is a deep and persistent grief. The grief of leaving a place I have fallen so deeply in love with, without knowing when, or even how, I will return.
How do you begin to explain to someone who has never visited Nepal the sheer generosity of spirit, the warmth, the heart frequencies that I feel in this land?
Nepal is a country without nuclear weapons, a place where ancient traditions and faiths intertwine. You find shrines honouring both Buddhist and Hindu deities, places where different spiritual paths exist side by side. And despite the chaos, the challenges and the troubling levels of pollution in some areas, there is a profound sense of peace woven into the fabric of the land.
The Himalayas are breathtakingly sacred. Nature is omnipresent, as are the devotees who move through it with such reverence. Everything feels bright, colourful and alive. There is an energy, an excitement, a beautiful unpredictability, yet somehow, beneath it all, there remains a sense of safety and community.
The Nepali people have shown me such kindness and generosity, often in the smallest of gestures. Walking from the centre of Lakeside to my homestay, I can say hello to at least six people every day: shopkeepers, locals, familiar faces who have become part of the rhythm of my life here.
These simple, cheerful acknowledgements mean more to me than I can explain. There is something about being recognised, about belonging to the fabric of a community, that makes me feel as though I have travelled back in time. As though life can still be lived at a gentler pace, where human connection isn’t something you have to arrange in a diary, but something that unfolds naturally as you walk through the world.
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How wonderful it is to be welcomed as family when you are a stranger in a foreign land.
How blessed I have been to find a home in this diverse, colourful and endlessly fascinating country. To have been met with such grace, kindness and generosity by the people who live here. To have experienced a kind of belonging I could never have planned for, and perhaps couldn’t even have imagined before arriving.
And now, before I’ve even left, I am grieving.
Perhaps this is what happens when a place gets under your skin. When somewhere you came to visit becomes somewhere you feel you belong. When the ordinary moments become precious, and the thought of losing them brings a sadness that sits alongside the gratitude.
I want to be present for every moment I have left here. I want to walk these streets, greet these familiar faces, breathe in the mountain air and soak up every last drop of this extraordinary experience.
But I am also allowing myself to feel the sadness of what is coming. Because loving a place this much means that leaving was never going to be easy.
Nepal, I will travel onwards with a heart that is both full and heavy.
Thank you for welcoming me. Thank you for reminding me of the beauty of human connection, of kindness freely given, and of the profound ways a land can touch your soul.
Thank you for making a stranger feel like family.
I don’t know when I will return, but I know that a part of me will remain here.
With love and gratitude, Nepal. ❤️
