Home Sweet Home Sick

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Home is easier to leave than to leave behind. I don't know what the hardwired genetic/biological/darwinized explanation for homesickness is, but there's something about those first safe environs, the walls and horizons that bound your world and mind and come in through your eyes before you even have words to describe them by. Your home is your cradle you as you grow, and then as you get bigger and your stomping grounds widen, it becomes your sure foundation. The place where you are when you learn who you are infuses you with a sense of confidence and competence.

And when you leave it behind, sometimes you leave all that behind. And the gap fills with what feels a little bit sick.

Comments

Anonymous said…
After we finished high school a close friend went to Brasil for a year (1996) as an exchange student. We/she was 17 and it was a massive culture shock for her. She was billeted in a town were the houses had dirt floors, attitudes to women were not so enlightened. Most people had very little money. The experience completely changed her life and left her with unfinished business. She never quite settled back into life in Brisbane, there was always a need to go back. Which she finally did a few months ago for 4 weeks. The town had not changed, her “family” were all still there, the Brasilian boyfriend, everyone, like a time capsule. It was completely overwhelming she said, after spending more than a decade literally dreaming most nights of going back. Anyway, my point of this ramble is that there is a Portuguese word, she told me, Saudades. Translated into English, she said, would be something like yearning, longing, nostalgia... a blend of all three. It's difficult to encapsulate in English she said. Babelfish tries … it’s answer is homesicknesses
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Saudades … what a lovely, wistful word.

Mel...........
July 5, 2009 at 8:30 PM
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