Ironic Advent 2016 MediCATION #8: Hiraeth

Half of Daniel's head, Jordan, and me, on our hotel balcony at Cedar Point in August, 2016.

A quick note: I’m assuming in this post that you’ve read my other meditations. If you haven’t, go back.

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I woke up with a sore throat today. I expect the reason is that I’ve been staying up too late and not getting nearly enough rest with all this writing. Somehow I’ve got 20 more of these things. Well, 21 since this isn’t finished. But never mind all that. Today is the 2nd Sunday of Advent. It’s also the first snowfall of the year. It’s coming down in big, fluffy snowflakes that drop to the ground like rain. I think I’ll go out for a drive before long. But first things first.

I’m going to use smaller paragraphs tonight, as a courtesy to those who’ve stuck with these meditations. I think I’ve made my point, that we should be willing to push through long blocks of text and stay connected to an author’s feelings and thoughts. This isn’t Twitter. It’s Pilgrim Dude. Pilgrimages aren’t pithy, and they aren’t limited to 140 characters, dude. If you have something worth saying, write it out, and give your voice a little more respect than a tweet, or, God forbid, 17 tweets, all in a row, trying to make some Really Important Point. True, you might not get as many likes or favorites or retweets or whatever, but good work doesn’t usually involve constant positive reinforcement or daily self-esteem boosts. Sometimes, we have to keep our heads down, do the work, and trust. So much for smaller paragraphs.

Last fall I went on a date with a poet. She was from Maine and doing graduate work at Ball State. I drove to Muncie and we met there for a walk. She introduced me to her cats (literally, this isn't innuendo) and we went out and got pizza and beer. I warned her ahead of time that she’d have to read me at least 2 poems. She was working a project about words in other languages that have no direct English translation. One of these is a Welsh word, hiraeth. She read me a poem about hiraeth.

Hiraeth is a kind of homesickness, but that’s too weak a word. Hiraeth is the grief, longing, nostalgia, and yearning we have for a home to which we cannot return, for the places of the past, and, sometimes, for places which have never been.

Writing these meditations, last night especially, my heart has been squeezed by hiraeth. I suppose the best way to deal with it, as with all emotions, is to just feel your way through. Me, Jordan, Jon, Ben: we grew up, as teenage boys do. That old futon didn’t do much for my sleep and it was replaced by a proper bed; I sold that Camaro and bought a truck; Halo got a little stale and the PC games we played outpaced our computers; Big Yellow Taxi girl and I broke up and I stopped going to that Nazarene youth group where we met. Not long after, we all graduated from high school and I moved to Huntington and began a new chapter.

I was listening to the radio
I heard a song reminded me of long ago
Back then I thought that things were never gonna change
It used to be that I never had to feel the pain
I know that things will never be the same now

I wanna go back
And do it all over again
But I can't go back I know
I wanna go back
Cause I'm feeling so much older
But I can't go back I know

- Eddie Money, "I Wanna Go Back"

I realize now, looking back, that my heart has been squeezed for over a decade. Hiraeth. I feel it. I’ve felt it ever since I left Bluffton for Huntington University in the fall of 2005. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt at home the way I did in those years from 2002 to 2005 with Jordan, Jon, and Ben, and all my other friends who found life at the house on 350 south. I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to articulate that, to be vulnerable about that, until now.  

Or, if I have, I’ve been too eager to find a solution. Instead of sitting with it, chewing on it, taking a pilgrimage, I’ve seen the answer up in my head and jumped at it; I’ve tried to move from Act 1 to Act 3; I’ve tried to master the force sitting in Yoda’s swamp. It doesn’t work that way. I’m learning that growth and roots and dust and seeds and change, they just don’t work that way.

Those days are gone, but I’m alive, and so are Jordan, Jon, and Ben. I see Ben regularly, Jon semi-regularly, and Jordan and I went to Cedar point with Daniel this past August. These bonds are as strong as ever. These friendships are life to me. I am filled with a new sense of commitment to these dear, old friends. We can’t go back, but we can live with gratitude and intention and hugs for the people we’ve known and loved since we were kids. Hiraeth is real, but so is Advent.

Circa 1998. Jon is wearing the jacket with the "M." Ben is in the red t-shirt. Jordan is the only one with his mouth open. I'm on the bottom in the nWo Wolfpac shirt.