There is the obvious meaning of the word. It’s when you sleep under bridges or take shelter in the entrance of a department store or supermarket. If you have to do this you are in trouble. You don’t have any money for decent accommodation, and you don’t have friends who would take you in for the night. Your home is where you feel secure, protected; where you know the people, and the people know you.

Over the past months, any doubt that Dublin and Ireland had become my home had been swept away. There was a level of support and solidarity from so many people, it was truly amazing. i came back from Germany on Thursday for a few days and, for some reason, got a very profound feeling of being homeless. I have been uprooted, my live thrown up into the air, and there it is . Of course, I am not really homeless. I have a roof over my head. But I am no longer moving within well established and understood boundaries. I had no choice.

Today was an ordinary day for Pádraig. Nothing strange happened. It was one of these days that little more than five months ago would have filled us with horror. Not anymore. The unthinkable has become a recurring, regular part of our lives. We are not speechless anymore, but ask questions, make suggestions, and manage the situation as good as we can.

I never understood people who spent all their money on buying a house. I always wanted to buy a boat. A house ties you down, a boat keeps you moving. Life eventually made me (us) buy a house, the boat remained my dream. What I really need today though is neither a house nor a boat but Captain Kirk’s transporter operated by Scotty, to ‘beam me up’.

Today’s German Music Tip
Hans Albers, Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (1943) (From the movie: Große Freiheit Nr. 7; there is a version of the movie, including the song, with English subtitles on youtube; the song starts at 4:49)
What’s hot
The beer-drinking horse in ‘Die große Freiheit Nr. 7’
What’s cold
Being uprooted.
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Hack’ Dich unter… wir wollen zusammen… mal bummeln gehn.