Hiraeth

Hiraeth – longing for a home, place, or feeling that no longer exists or never existed

The first time that I experienced hiraeth was during a drive down to a destination near the Gulf Coast. A group of us had left after class on Friday and had traveled through the afternoon and the early evening, the sunset and the twilight. We had left the cities behind, and the roads that we were taking were now taking us deep into a dark, forested area.

After the last glimmer of sunlight had disappeared, and while we were still about an hour away from our destination, I happened to look out of the window. The blackness around us was so complete that I could see stars scattered everywhere above us. I was reminded of The Eagles’s version of “Seven Bridges Road”.

There are stars in the Southern sky
Southward as you go
There is moonlight and moss in the trees

Down the Seven Bridges Road

I felt like we were flying. I felt like we were meant to be there at the precise moment and that it was the beginning of the rest of our lives. I felt like it was literally coming home to a place where I had never lived — a place where I had never even been before. I felt like this place was a balm for forgotten wounds, that I had simultaneously been here before and was seeing it for the first time. How I longed to stay in that moment, frozen in time, with people that I cared about around me.

I could not quite express my feelings at the time. How could you explain that you had been homesick for this moment for years before you were experiencing it? Especially to people who had lived in this magical place and would not see it through the eyes of the uninitiated.

I have felt this experience at least twice more. Once in a little house in New Jersey, sitting on a couch while the night was falling, Norah Jones was singing, and I felt the slightest brush against my hair. Was it someone in the house or just my imagination that I was welcomed and surrounded by ones who loved me?

And again, while in London where I felt like I was home, part of and separate from the bustling city, where my feet were skimming over cobblestones and the sound of Big Ben was pealing overhead. The thought that so many people that I admired and so many that I would have loved to have met had been in this place, perhaps at a similar time; our spirits brushing past each other as we moved through the chilly fog with leaves falling gently at our feet.

I still remember the feeling of belonging, of being woven into the correct place in the tapestry of experience, and knowing that everything was right with the world, if only for the next few fleeting moments. I was and am homesick for these places, these times, and I find myself longing to have that sense of certainty again.