Fernweh

(I wrote this while listening to the music below. So quiet, so relaxing…so full of Fernweh.)

I just discovered a new word…Fernweh. It’s a German word that basically means that you are homesick for a place you have never seen. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? How can one feel such a wistful desire for a place you have never been? But as a confirmed Hopeless Romantic, I can verify that Fernweh does exist. I have known it…many times.

It is difficult to describe, but when you hear a certain piece of music or see a photo or a maybe a scene in a movie, you are suddenly overwhelmed with a nostalgia and yearning that envelopes you. I have often found myself standing on an ocean beach or a windy hillside looking out over the distant scene and feeling that slightly sad and wistful yearning to go “home.” But home to where?

Ah…therein lies the secret. For in each person, our “soul home” is different for each of us and can sometimes change over the years. For me, it has been the same since I was a little girl. I listen to the music below and I yearn to stand on the faded glory of yesteryear’s castles looking at a storm sweep up a green hillside. I can see myself…in clothes of a bygone era, hair blowing freely, staring at the distant horizon waiting.

Why does my heart know this place? Almost like a memory, it is imprinted on my mind like a faded dream. When I wander the timeworn stones and pathways of a crumbling English castle, I have stepped back in time and can hear the sounds of ancestors’ voices. Was that the sound of horse’s hoofs on the cobblestoned bridge? Is that distant merry laughter from the ruins of the great hall below? I hear the melancholy notes of a Celtic flute and I’m instantly transported. I am reluctant to leave. I close my eyes and my soul trembles slightly brushed with that haunting desire.

Yes, I know and understand Fernweh, but I believe most do. For in all of us, there is a memory of a spiritual home. We may not fully acknowledge it, but we all hear that distant music. Someday we will all find our soul’s “home” and finally be able to lay aside that quiet yearning for something more.

Of course some will say “Melissa, don’t be silly, it’s all in your head.” But as Dumbledore said in Harry Potter, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” (― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Silver Sailboats

 

I stare at the stars in the velvet darkness
Millions upon millions
of flickering lights
Dancing across the great
panorama of eternity

We are lost in the skies
Silver sailboats sailing along Moon River
Seeking a place to call home
Do I trust in Destiny
As the Midnight hour approaches?

Soft snowflakes turn to summer crickets
While white swans sail through the seasons
Taking no note of the sighs
Of the one who sits by
Silently waiting…

Yearning and Contentment

Have you ever had two polar opposite feelings tugging at you at the same time?

Over the past few years, I’ve had a great deal of disappointment as I’ve struggled from one failed dream after another.  It’s been a long, difficult, uphill road as I’ve worked to find a place and a career where I can put down roots.  I have felt this tugging, this yearning, to be living in another part of the world and engaged in a writing career, but life has put up obstacle after obstacle as I have tried to make that dream come true.

Yet this desire to be somewhere else has often distracted me from appreciating the life I’m living and the beautiful places surrounding me.  While I have yearned, planned, desired and dreamed, I have often missed seeing what I already had.

Just the other day, for example, I felt this strong need to just drive somewhere I had not been and see something different.  I drove 20 minutes in one direction and ran straight into charming small-town America.  I followed a road running up a hillside almost as far as it would go.  It lead me straight into a farmer’s field.  I hesitated as I parked my car.  I was on someone else’s land, but it was just an old dirt track, and I figured that the farmer wouldn’t mind if I just took a stroll and a few photos.

I climbed up the hill a little and then turned around.  The valley lay before me in the summer sun.  Different patches of green and brown played across the vista of rolling hills.  Small ponds and watered fields shimmered in the afternoon sun.  A brief rainstorm had swept through earlier that day.  The wind on the hillside was so refreshing that I took a deep breath of the cleanliness of it all and let it all out.  With that breath, I also let go of the discontent, anxiety and frustration I was feeling.

Nearby, I heard the cry of an eagle and looked up to see it gliding over the recently cut hay.  As I stood there listening to it’s call, feeling the wind toss my hair and the rays of the sun warm my skin, I felt peace and contentment.  I felt joy and energy sweep away the negativity.

Eventually the farmer did come wandering along his dirt road and asked me in a friendly manner if I was ok.  I showed him my camera and asked permission to take landscape photos.  He quickly agreed.  We had a genial conversation and he waved a friendly goodbye as he was off to feed his cattle for the evening.

I stood there watching him go and marveled at how different this place was to so many other places I had been in the world.   So there were still places where trust, simplicity and sincere friendliness existed.  What a gift!  This stranger was not concerned that I would do any damage to his fields, he was more concerned that I was in need of assistance.

 

That afternoon, I learned two very distinct lessons. The first lesson I learned was to stop being so cynical and realize that kindness, generosity and a sincere desire for another’s welfare still exists in the human race.  It might seem rarer than it once did, but it is still there.

The second lesson was that in all of our dreaming and goal-making, we also need to appreciate what is in front of us.  Friendship, beauty and meaning can be found in any place in the world if we seek it out.

Does this mean that I will stop yearning or dreaming?  No…but I will stop spending so much time wishing for what could be and instead just enjoy what is.