When a student reads my description of a hike in Scotland, she pines for the heather hills.
She's never been, and so she asks the question, "Can I be homesick for a place I've never been?"
The question intrigues me, and I wonder if I too have ever been homesick for an unknown or forgotten place.
Yes, but can we really be homesick for the unknown?
But is the unknown really known?
Is homesick possible if the place was never home?
I divert to India.
We can hunger, desire, and stretch for the unknown place, but on some level India was known to me. I'd seen photos, watched movies, interacted with people from the great continent. I knew its food, cooked with its spices, heard the tales of ancient and modern travelers. I'd met and loved the children who'd been adopted from its cradle; I even performed with my student from India in an Indian dance. I'd admired the beauty of my friend's sari, her delicate features, her dark and exotic skin, her international flare.
I found my way "home" to India. But when I landed on its soil, it was not my home. It was distant, unsettling, forceful of thought.
Since then, I have been driven by strong desires to unknown places. I have been delighted by the vistas, the neon fish, the way they toss their noodles or do the dishes in an outdoor kitchen--- or the way a land crab sits under the counter in a lidded pot.
The place has delighted me, but never have I exulted with joy, "This is where I belong!"... always, always, so happy to return home.
Home is where the heart is, the old cliche resounds. "There's no place like home," says Dorothy after she is thrown from the farm house into the.unsettling land of Oz.,
So what makes home? Can we be homesick for a place we've never been?
I still tend to say, Yes, because in times of despair, weakness, when I'm standing under a pounding waterfall trying not to swallow gallons of water, I am homesick for a place I've never been, but a place I sense is home. A place of love, of primordial beginnings, a place of return.
She's never been, and so she asks the question, "Can I be homesick for a place I've never been?"
The question intrigues me, and I wonder if I too have ever been homesick for an unknown or forgotten place.
Yes, but can we really be homesick for the unknown?
But is the unknown really known?
Is homesick possible if the place was never home?
I divert to India.
We can hunger, desire, and stretch for the unknown place, but on some level India was known to me. I'd seen photos, watched movies, interacted with people from the great continent. I knew its food, cooked with its spices, heard the tales of ancient and modern travelers. I'd met and loved the children who'd been adopted from its cradle; I even performed with my student from India in an Indian dance. I'd admired the beauty of my friend's sari, her delicate features, her dark and exotic skin, her international flare.
I found my way "home" to India. But when I landed on its soil, it was not my home. It was distant, unsettling, forceful of thought.
Since then, I have been driven by strong desires to unknown places. I have been delighted by the vistas, the neon fish, the way they toss their noodles or do the dishes in an outdoor kitchen--- or the way a land crab sits under the counter in a lidded pot.
The place has delighted me, but never have I exulted with joy, "This is where I belong!"... always, always, so happy to return home.
Home is where the heart is, the old cliche resounds. "There's no place like home," says Dorothy after she is thrown from the farm house into the.unsettling land of Oz.,
So what makes home? Can we be homesick for a place we've never been?
I still tend to say, Yes, because in times of despair, weakness, when I'm standing under a pounding waterfall trying not to swallow gallons of water, I am homesick for a place I've never been, but a place I sense is home. A place of love, of primordial beginnings, a place of return.
Comments