What Makes a Home?
When people ask me where I’m from, I usually answer that I’m from Sweden. I was born in Varberg, a coastal town on the west coast. Through my childhood we moved a great deal — or, looking back, I can admit we moved often, from place to place, first within Sweden and then around Europe. My family followed wherever my father found work. We rarely stayed anywhere for long. A pattern I have carried with me into adult life, too.
Eight years ago, my family and I made the decision to leave Sweden and move to my husband’s homeland, Sicily — this island full of surprises. Southern Sweden and Sicily are opposites in many ways; what works in Sweden does not work here. In a record six months, we managed to sell house and home, furniture and all. Whatever we couldn’t sell, we gave to charity. We have all, at some point, changed where we live, and it makes its demands: the choice of what to take and what to let go. Moving abroad, trying to bring as little as possible, forces you to clear out so much that it almost hurts. What I took with me was my whole studio, all my books, my ceramics collection, and a box of personal things.
In the box of personal things is what has been with me since childhood and what, somehow, I have never let go of: old photographs going back to my grandparents, a small oak carving of a couple holding each other, old letters, a ceramic painting from 1988, vinyl records, and a great many notebooks, diaries, and sketchbooks. Things that mean a great deal to me, and nothing at all to anyone else. Perhaps I would call it the memory box. All of it has been part of my life for years — it has followed me, and follows me still.
Some things I’ve kept purely for decoration, for a reason I can’t explain to myself. An old grey Cobra telephone that doesn’t work and serves no purpose — and yet I’m very fond of it. I still like the sound of dialing a number on it. A Marshall speaker, which hasn’t worked in years and is beyond repair, stands as a fine decoration on one of my bookshelves. And then there is the tomte (a gnome from Nordic folklore), which I had put in the pile for charity. For some strange reason, it did not want to leave me. Unpacking the moving boxes, I found it looking kindly up at me.
A longing I have carried for many years, and carry still, is a classic Italian dream: an old house, a small garden full of lemon trees, basil growing like weeds, and a big kitchen for long dinners with family and friends. Even as a child, I knew I would marry an Italian — and so it turned out. The dream of that house remains, even if reality looks a little different. Where we live now, in central Catania, the apartment is modern and good — very good. Kind neighbours, the shops and the Metro around the corner. If someone asked me to describe a good home, I might well describe just this. I have learned that what makes a place feel like home is perhaps not how you live, but what you have around you. Belonging — that is the right word: becoming, over time, part of a community. The doorman, whom I often have coffee with, has become something of a friend; the cashier where I do my shopping always asks after me and the family; and my husband’s aunt, who lives across from us, has been an invaluable help with the language.
If I need help with something, or to find a handyman, I know who to turn to. A home, perhaps, is not the address, but who you can call. What I have carried with me over the years, in a personal box, is part of my history — safe, familiar things, bound up with who I am and where I come from.
As for the tomte — he lives now on a shelf in the hallway, all year round. He made the journey from Sweden to Sicily. And he is staying, watching over us. Just as in Nordic folklore.
Anna Posa
August 2026, Sicily