It's a poetic description. John receives it as a door cracking open, just enough to reveal—

Well, maybe nothing so surprising. In the midst of all else Byerly Rutyer is, he is still Fereldan. Is it such a shock he'd be charmed by Nascere in all it's unbound glory?

"Would you like to know something...funny?" John offers after a moment. "I think I've spent more time here than I did there, all in all."

Perhaps everything would have gone differently had that not been the case. What if he and Flint had gone home rather than remained? There'd been opportunity.

"And what's kept me here is hardly a mystery," he continues. "But I've wondered about you, from time to time. Are you so fulfilled here?"

Is Ferelden so well-served by your presence here, is a very different question but it lurks at the edges of the conversation.