Where Time Stands Still: My Mom’s Hidden Ancestral Village

What does peace feel like to you?
Is it going on a long drive, the windows rolled down, letting the cool breeze tangle your hair?
Is it spending time on a quiet beach, feeling the wet sand slip away under your feet?
Is it lying under a velvet night sky, counting stars, or walking through the vibrant downtown, gazing up at the endless rows of tall, glittering buildings?
Maybe it’s simply sitting with your loved ones, sharing laughter, or backpacking across the world with nothing but a map and a dream.

For me, peace feels a little different.
I’m a big city boy — born and raised in one of the world’s largest, loudest metropolitans.
I never experienced the hush of a silent hill, or the charm of a village morning, or the feeling of pulling water from a deep old well.
Instead, my world was always fast cars honking their way through traffic, neon lights, restless crowds, and endless competition.

So, to me, peace feels like silence.
Just... silence.
A moment when the world finally stops rushing.

To me, peace feels like this:

Far, far away from the chaos of urban life, beyond the traffic, the noise, and the restless crowds, lies a small village by the name of "Nikku."
A village where my mother’s roots still quietly exist, like an old story waiting to be told.
It’s a place I always had a deep, unexplainable longing to visit, even though I had never seen it with my own eyes.
A village where the old graveyard still holds the remains of my ancestors, silently guarding their memories under the open sky.

To me, peace wasn’t just a destination. It was the journey.
It was about traveling all alone, without knowing the exact directions, guided only by a heart full of hope.
It was about wandering unfamiliar paths just for the chance to feel the soil of that land in my hands, to let it slip through my fingers and feel something ancient come alive. Like shaking hands with history...

Peace, I realized, wasn’t a distant dream.
It was in the simple act of drinking fresh, cold water, drawn straight from an ancient well.
The kind of water that tasted raw and real, nothing like the bottled purity I was used to.

As I stood their gulping the water down my throat, I started a conversation with this boy who was drawing water. He was gathering water for his family, he said, as he did every day.
I asked him, half-wondering, half-searching,

"Are you content with this life?"

He looked at me and smiled, not the forced smile I often saw in the city, but a pure one.
“What else would I want?” he said simply.
“My father did this, his father before him, and so on.
We have our lands, our farms, our animals. We have enough.”

For a long moment, I stood silent.
In the endless rush of my life, chasing dreams, ticking boxes, had I forgotten how to be content?
Should I pity this boy for his hard life?
Or should I pity myself? Privileged, restless, always hungry for more...
while he, with so little, carried a peace inside him that I had been searching for all along?

Dusk was slowly encircling us, wrapping the village in a golden haze.
The fields shimmered under the last light of the sun, and the air grew cooler, heavier with the scent of earth and water

As I prepared to head back to the city, I paused for a moment, standing still under the wide open sky.
I took one deep breath, trying to inhale it all in. The peace, the simplicity, the forgotten parts of myself that seemed to awaken here.
With a heart heavier than my steps, I turned away, knowing I was carrying something back with me.
A memory.
A lesson.
A quiet reminder of what truly matters....