two years ago, I stumbled across the word ‘saudade’ – a deep emotional state; a yearning for a happiness that has passed, or perhaps never even existed. it resonated, but it felt like it was a puzzle piece that almost fit. Almost.
fast forward to my first week in Wales, and I’m sat in the upper level of the Waterstones cafe, hiding from the rain. Finally deciding to close my old site with all my old writings, to create a blank start again. and I struggled to title it, to acutely describe how i felt, this uneasiness that i’ve grown comfortable around, my shadow. I search for words outside the one I’m comfortable in, why not Welsh? and then i see it.
Hiraeth.
It was the missing puzzle piece, a word that described this unspeakable feeling. It literally can’t be translated but essentially it’s – “a combination of the homesickness, longing, nostalgia, and yearning, for a home that you cannot return to, no longer exists, or maybe never was. ”
“a longing to be where your spirit lives.”
it can’t quite be translated into English and i love it all the more for it.
what does the word ‘home’ mean. where you grew up, where your family and community is, where you reside or is it where you find yourself? can we have more than one?
sometimes I wonder if our bodies are home to the sadness and heaviness so often felt, and that i just happened to be one of the so many that left the light on, inviting it to stay. it never leaves.
hiraeth. it’s beautiful, tragically so and my heart nearly stopped today when i saw it being sold as mere souvenirs – a gift of longing.
in what could be my unexpectedly last few days in this new place i’ve made a (temporary) home of , i can’t help but think i’ll feel hiraeth for Cardiff too. and it makes me wonder what comes next?
hiraeth 