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

choreophile

choreophile may be used for someone who loves dancing. ‘phile’ is usually used for a person who ‘loves’.

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
― Rumi

Hoedown –

These articles were taken from a Mrs. Roberts, who lived in the same house with her, while the owner was tripping it on the “light fantastic toe” at a hoe-down, break-down, “whoop-ze-zaw,” or some other merry-making that kept her from home until the break of day.
—The Baltimore Sun, 10 Jun. 1839

Waltz-

Had his old Guernsey friends been present on these occasions they would not have recognized in the soldier, resplendent in a general’s uniform, now dancing a mazurka, the handsome stripling who only a few years since had waltzed his way into the hearts of all the women of St. Peter’s Port.
—Walter R. Nursey, The Story of Isaac Brock, Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1908

Sashay-

She made new friends with the older girls at school and soon had them walking like her: stomach tucked in, buttocks rolling like well-oiled joints and head held high, their jaws opening and closing as chewing gum klikked and klakked in their mouths. “These girls are heading straight to oku mmuo, hell,” our parents warned as the girls sashayed by and we secretly prayed to go to hell with them, just for a chance to be that glamorous.
—Chika Unigwe, Sugar in My Bowl (in Matatu 33), 2006

Shimmy –

”I asked if the car had been in a major accident and the salesman said, ‘Oh, no, we don’t sell cars that have been in major accidents.’” But when his daughter drove the car home, he said, “the car was shimmying so badly” that she said she could barely control it. —Henry Gilgoff, Newsday (Long Island, NY), 26 Sept. 1973

Boogie –

The girls were so lovely and “boogied” so scintillatingly that one person was heard to remark, “Goodness, I’m certainly glad my husband couldn’t be here tonight.”
—The Chicago Defender, 1 Nov. 1941

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

 Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. ~ George Bernard Shaw

fandango, two-step, cakewalk, break, bust a groove, crunk, cut a rug, freak, footwork, get funky, get your swerve on, ghost ride the whip, juke, pogoing, rave, etc

Dancing party in Korea— lot of love

Dancing in Korea — smiling memories.. miss those days

Festival Seoul Korea

Mom in the 1990’s – 2000s very far left dancing with dad and some random woman

Cousin photo shopping actual dancing pic

dancing festival in the city

Someone is going away – Caracas

Worship? Bellydance – Bangkok

Festival Seoul Korea

Last dance for Madison – Korea

disco · samba · tango · 2-step · boogie · conga · foxtrot – roth; quiall; rachel; pvcann; katiemiafrederick; fabio; salsaworldtraveler; Aaarrrrr!! Klutzy; Country Line Dances; Old Time Dance; My Time To Dance;  Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy; A banana, a ghost and a dash of foxtrot in Blackpool

Novaturient

Novaturient (adjective) Origin: German | nO·va·’tUr·E·ent  A desire to alter your life; The feeling that pushes you to travel

“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

By deciding to alter my life and travel, I have been exposed to so many wonderful people, places, experiences, foods, drinks, ideas, visions, smells, sensations, and a never-ending supply of learning opportunities.  Each of these experiences have increased my desire to alter my life and travel more.  Some of my favorite or most memorable experiences:

1.  Living and teaching in Seoul, South Korea. It was hard for me to limit it to just these photos. In three years, I must have lived through 50 life times.  I went there in 2007 with my youngest daughter.  She stayed a year then moved back to the U.S. at which time my oldest daughter came to visit me and ended up staying a year.  Between traveling through Korea, volunteering at orphanages and soup kitchens, participating in theater, stand up, movie making, reiki, tea ceremonies, and on the list goes.  The most memorable experience of my life.  One day I will go back.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your Balance you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

“Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Festival Seoul Korea

Festival Seoul Korea

Festival Seoul Korea

Korea

Korea

Dongdemun market kOrea

Festival Seoul Korea

Dongdemun market kOrea

Seoul, South Korea

The white balloon symbolized peace and freedom and often these balloons were let loose into the air with candles inside so the white would glow bright and high into the sky.

Yes, another hike in Korea. The hikes were amazing and such vistas.

Korean palace wall

Rain on a hike – Korea

Obviously there was something very unsettling with the small, Korean bananas in my daughter’s left hand. Now I knew there was nothing wrong. but even to me it did not seem right.

Korean Traditional Festival

Fake smiling in Korea

Volleyball game in Korea with daughters

Sport Chumps smile for the fundraiser.

Korean subway, met Elvis’s doppleganger.. though not wrong.. didn’t feel right..

Wow.. another favorite smiler in Korea

Smiles or fishlips in Korea – favorite smiler

Smiling in Korea.. another favorite smiler

One of my favorite Korean smile pictures

Korean smiles

DMZ – woot woot – Korea

Evolution of Madison – Korea

Good-bye lunch – Korea

Mask Festival – Andong – Korea

Low water rafting in South Korea. water was so low we had to pirate-ize ourselves and tip the other boats to get wet.

Rugby match viewing in Itaewon, South Korea with friends.

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

Seoul, Korea

Who are you fighting? Seoul, Korea

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

2.  Venezuela. 2010 – 2012. friends, food, festivities, hikes, rafting, paragliding, sky-diving, animal safaris.  My oldest daughter, her husband and my grand-daughter lived with me for about 8 months.  This was another of my favorite locations and times.  I can’t describe how sad I was to leave Venezuela.  I am fortunate to be in contact with so many of my colleagues and friends from this time period.  One day, I dream we will meet again.

coffee in venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela, Marine Ball with son-in-law and friend

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

Canyoning in Merida with Guamanchi Tours

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

More of the liquid city. Catatumbo, Venezuela

Barinas, Venezuela farmland

Guamanchi animal safari in Los llanos – anaconda capture

Turgua, Venezuela, Charity toy drive for local community in Venezuela with very dear friend

The job and the net

sister time, Venezuela

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

coffee in Venezuela

Los Llanos, Venezuela

Paragliding with Guamanchi in Merida, Venezuela

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

The Avila in Venezuela

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike – Coco Frio

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

Venezuela

delta orinoco, Venezueal

3.  Cambodia – 2009 – This trip will also stay forever in my heart. It was my first solo trip. No kids, no friends, no knowledge of what I would get myself into.  I ate fried frogs, dried out grasshoppers, visited temples, made folks smile, folks made me smile.  I randomly ran into a couple of friends that I had known from Korea but also made so many more friends.  Visited a floating village and heard the stories of children who were the only source of income for their families.  An incredible place.  I have been back two times since 2009, more as a typical tourist doing more typical touristy things.  Nothing will ever compare to that first time.  It was a magical place.

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”  – Anita Desai

Face in Cambodia

Cambodia friends and random travelers

Floating Vietnamese village in Cambodia

beautiful happy children in Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Eating bugs in Cambodia

Cambodia

Zoom in on the face of a little boy begging in Cambodia

Cambodian Cooking Class

Street gaming – Cambodia

Peaceful walk – Cambodia

Snakes and smiles.. nervous smiles

Flat tire repair.. showering in yard – Cambodia

Free living in Cambodia made me smile a lot

Cambodia boat cruise night time

Flowers blooming in the City in Cambodia

moto taxi – Cambodia

Drying fish – Cambodia

Colors – Cambodia

Vietnamese floating village tour guide – Cambodia

Everything is for sale – Cambodia

They know how to do dinner – Cambodia

Great foto ops in Cambodia

6 weeks hiking solo in Cambodia.. but never really alone with road found friends.

Cambodia

Cambodia

4.  Nepal – 2013-2015 – This was a uniquely different time of travel.  Kathmandu was amazing and wonderful and full of temples, and crowded and dirty.  I went on hikes and hashes weekly.  The food was ok, my colleagues were great.  I had friends from all over come and visit me. The most outstanding experience though was going through an actual earthquake.  I think what I learned most in Nepal was how resilient the Nepalese people were.  Not a single colleague missed a day of work after the earthquake.  Despite their homes being destroyed.  Despite their families living in tents outside of their home.  I will never forget that experience.  I think I also learned a little more how resilient I was.  How being in a situation that has devastated an entire country can change your life.  Seems like an obvious thing to say, but sometimes I will go back and look at photos or watch a CCTV clip from that time and just be in awe.  I also learned that it is unlikely i will ever again ride an elephant.

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

bamboo swings set up all over Kathmandu.

Tika Colors in Nepal

Leaving the tourist area

Edge of decency, Chitwan Nepal

Nepali whiskey

A random hill with random kids yelling random happy Nepali phrases at us.

White nosed Elephant in CHitwan Nepal

Nepal

Nepal

Nepali Dictionary.. duh

Water’s edge Chitwan Nepal

Nepal

Child in Pink, Nepal

Tikka in Nepal

Nepal

Bananas on the edge of a field Chitwan Nepal

Back edge of an elephant – Chitwan

Electric candle with Kathmandu in background

Nepal

Nepal

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

Obviously I have been in many more places and have thousands upon thousands of examples of the things I have done and what I have learned and how I have grown.  All I know is that this adventure I have been living will likely never end.  I may retire from my work/travel life.  But travel will be something that I will never retire from.  it’s something that is in my blood and in my soul.  It is actually this journaling began.. and it is likely how this journal will end.

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

“Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin

Traveling souls: Sheree; Coreen; wanderingcanadians; tempranillo; albatz; dewetswild; woollymuses; carol; stephen; awara; Leane

Wabbit

“I’m so good at sleeping that I can do it with my eyes closed.” — Anonymous

Wabbit. No, this isn’t referring to a wascally wabbit. It is a Scottish term for being exhausted. Next time you’re tired, try saying, “I’m pretty wabbit at the moment” and see just how many people look at you strange.

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
― Ernest Hemingway

Perfect word for today!  It is true that I have always gone to bed early and I always wake up early.  Some stories my dad has told about me was that I was the easiest kid to take care of at bedtime.  Never fought going to bed.  This is a permanent part of my personality.

Last night I went to bed about 8:30 pm.  Yes, I usually go to bed this early.  I lay there for a bit and read or listen to some music.  However, I woke up at midnight and could not fall back asleep until about 3:30 am.  I got up and drank some sleepy-time tea, had a little snack, read a little.  Nothing worked.  I could not fall back asleep.  This is an anomaly for me.

I love a good night’s sleep because I wake up feeling so much better.  Everything from the day before has been washed away and I always feel like I have a fresh start to either continue with whatever I started or completely start over and just leave the messy day behind. So today, this was the best word inspiration I could have had. Enjoy!!

“Dear sleep, I’m sorry we broke up this morning. I want you back!” — Anonymous

“I already want to take a nap tomorrow.” — Anonymous

“I love to sleep. Do you? Isn’t it great? It really is the best of both worlds. You get to be alive and unconscious.” — Rita Rudner

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Your eyes water when you yawn because you miss your bed and it makes you sad.” — Anonymous

Washington D.C.

“Happiness is waking up, looking at the clock and finding that you still have two hours left to sleep.” — Charles M. Schulz

“People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. ‘For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.’

If you didn’t know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you’d seen.

They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the ‘mind adventures’ got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren’t unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.’

So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you’re in a science fiction movie. And whisper, ‘The creature is regenerating itself.”
― George Carlin

Sweet dreams:  kait; gail; raung; elena; neihtn; pensitivity; aaysid; masgautsen; caramel; Jane

Nemophilist

Nemophilist (n.) – Origin: Greek – Definition: A haunter of the woods; one who loves the forest and its beauty and solitude.

So many forests in so many countries with so many people with so little time. Park forests, mountain forests, island forests, animal forests.  I cannot say all of this better than the people I am quoting below.

“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

– John Muir

“Gold is a luxury. Trees are necessities. Man can live and thrive without gold, but we cannot survive without trees.”

– Paul Bamikole

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“I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.”

– Mary Davis

“In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.”

– John Fowles

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Herman Hesse

forest: roth; michele; mark; sustainabilitea; becky; Mason; Eddie; paula; phillip; Ingrid; cherie; cepcarol; sandy; paul; sue; rebecca