Take me back to that place I can't go

I learned a new word recently: hiraeth (pronounced: “hear-eth”). Ever heard it? Neither had I. I think it’s pretty old-school, probably one that has fallen by the wayside in modern times.

But it’s such a good word. I think we should bring it back.

What hiraeth means is this: a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or for a home that never was. It can also refer to the nostalgia, yearning, or even grief that you feel for the lost places of your past.

Whoa. Good one, right?

I found myself feeling some hiraeth, all of the sudden, last Friday while wrapping up a shopping trip at an outdoor mall. It was just past dusk, warm and damp. The air smelled like ice cream and rain. To my left, a college-aged couple walked with their arms around each other, laughing together at something one of them had said. Sixteen years ago, I was in a couple like that. I met my now-husband on a June evening. For a moment I had a strong, almost painful longing for that time when it was just he and I, sharing a private laugh as he headed to the bookstore, swatting away mosquitoes as we walked. Sharing a million little rituals and jokes and wasted time—all of this, I took for granted for the seven years we had together before Evie came along. And in that moment, I wanted it back. I don’t wish my kids away, but sometimes I wish for the ease and comfort of just the two of us.

To my right, a group of four loud teenagers clumsily engaged in conversation together, one of them stepping over another’s words, another making an attempt at a joke that no one seemed to get except for him. Yet then their conversation fell into stride; an easy flow, a spontaneous call-and-response. I remembered what it was like to talk when there was nothing important to talk about. The topics of their conversation were light, mostly meaningless—and to my ear it all sounded like freedom, and like fun. And then more hiraeth, for the times even before my now-husband, the times spent doing absolutely nothing of any consequence with longtime friends. Our windows down and dust flying in our faces, Limp Bizkit or Tim McGraw or possibly even Chicago providing the soundtrack for the night. Hearing the cracking voices and feeling wrapped in the cocoon of humidity and taking in the scent of their cigarette smoke tugged at something right at the center of me.

And then…then. The cigarette smoke. Menthols on a muggy summer breeze. I thought of my Grandma, who smoked for years and years. For me, cigarette smoke on outside air smells like comfort. I longed for my grandma. But not the grandma I could go see now—and let me take a moment to say that yes, she’s with us still and yes, I am absolutely blessed to be 33 and have all my grandparents alive. And I love seeing my grandma now. If I’m being honest, though, who I wanted to see that night was my grandma when I was 5, and she was maybe 50 and so vibrant, her hair as red as smashed bricks and her wit so sharp you might cut yourself on it if you weren’t careful. I could see her sitting on her hard front steps, lit menthol in hand, laughing at me as I tried to walk a straight line on cement strips that lined one of her many gardens. Laughing at me because I was extremely pigeon-toed and walking straight was damn-neared impossible for me. But laughing at me kindly, and encouraging me to keep trying. I remember Grandma this way. Especially when I smell menthols in the summer. And I long for her, that way, and I long for being a child who had nothing on her mind but trying to learn to walk straight.

The irony of it all is that even as I could taste simplicity and freedom on the tip of my tongue, I walked through that damp night to my beige minivan, a symbol of being tethered if I ever saw one. I got in and went to pick up my 8-year old daughter. Seeing her sweet, pool-drenched self made me forget my hiraeth for awhile.

And then Orlando happened, a horrific mass shooting. Innocents died, so many innocents. I looked at their pictures, I read their bios. I imagined what it must have been like to be in the club that night. Or to be a mother or a sister or a daughter of a victim. A client showed me a Snapchat she happened to receive, being a friend of a friend of one of the victims, showing the woman’s last moments in the club and the beginning of the chaos that would go on to take her life. Gunshots. Screaming. I wish I hadn’t seen the Snapchat. I wish my client hadn’t seen it, either.

And then a few days later a toddler drowns at the happiest place on earth due to a freak alligator incident.

Let's not forget about the girl who was recently raped behind a dumpster. Or the fact that somewhere in America, a woman is being raped approximately every two minutes. (That's a real statistic, folks.)

I hear about painful things every day. It’s part of my job to do this, and it’s usually manageable. But at the moment, the pain around me and in me is loud, so loud, and so heavy.

I know what I should do to cope. Stay grounded in the present. Breathe in gratitude for the good things, breathe out the illusion of control of things beyond my scope. Work towards acceptance of the things that hurt and that I can't fix. I know this stuff. I teach this stuff! But sometimes I don't want to do it.

Right now there are two things that I do want: 1) To go far, far away, to a place where no one can reach me and where no news exists, just for a little while. I've already read 22 books this year, all fiction. Now you know why. Otherwise, I'd also take option 2) To go back in time. To not know things, to have never known things. To be five, or maybe fifteen. Maybe even nineteen. I’m embarrassed to admit that I often, very very often, wish I could unlearn things.

Hiraeth. Take me back to that place I can’t go.