Hireath


Hireath (noun) Origin: Welsh | HEER-eyeth A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was.

Home is wherever I hang my hat.  ~~Miriam Margolyes

It’s so funny to me.  I only lived there for three years out of the fifty-five I have under my belt.  It was my home for such a very short time.  It’s not that I cannot return to it, it is not that it never was my home.  It was.  I knew it was not really my forever home. It did feel sometimes that I had been there forever.

Those days and times, they were so vivid.  I sometimes dream of going back there and living forever.  I sometimes have dreams I am, in fact, there.  I wake up and feel a homesickness like that of when I am missing my native home.  The people.  The food.  The friends. The hikes. The smells, tastes, and sounds.

I have lived in many other places and have loved most of them.  However, this is the place I feel most tied to and one day … I am sure I will go back.

“Rhys absorbed that with chagrin. “No one has ever accused me of being a romantic,” he said ruefully.
“If you were, how would you propose?”
He thought for a moment. “I would begin by teaching you a Welsh word. Hiraeth There’s no equivalent in English.”
“Hiraeth,” she repeated, trying to pronounce it with a tapped R, as he had.
“Aye. It’s a longing for something that was lost, or never existed. You feel it for a person or a place, or a time in your life…it’s a sadness of the soul. Hiraeth calls to a Welshman even when he’s closest to happiness, reminding him that he’s incomplete.”
Her brow knit with concern. “Do you feel that way?”
“Since the day I was born.” He looked down into her small, lovely face. “But not when I’m with you. That’s why I want to marry you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Marrying Winterborne

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The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~~ Maya Angelou

“Do you know that high fever which invades us in our cold suffering, that aching for a land we do not know, that anguish of curiosity? There is a country which resembles you, where everything is beautiful, sumptuous, authentic, still, where fantasy has built and adorned a western China, where life is sweet to breathe, where happiness is wed to silence. That is where to live, that is where to die!”

– Invitation to a Voyage”
― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen and Wine and Hashish

Hireath- defjawthepoet; treenewt; jaydixit; creativeworms; Taste; beleagured; word association; adamisler; late night thoughts; Place of the living; Hiraeth — It’s Not That Hard to Say; Home; coffeetalks; lifeinthewronglane; Homesick for an Old Friend

2 thoughts on “Hireath

  1. I totally get this feeling. There is only one place where I feel complete: the blending of the natural beauty, medieval town charm, energy — part of which comes from the surrounding sea. It is where my body, mind, and spirit are in harmony, and I miss it. I actually long to be there, as no other pllace. I love my family, the home where we raised our children and have made our life for 35 years, but it is not the home of my soul. Is there a place like that for everyone? I’m glad I found it, but saddened that I’m not there, just for me.

    • That’s exactly it! I also feel that way around the ocean.. but nothing has compared to my time in Korea and I have LOVED so many places. Strange but a solid truth!

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