I’m sure that at any one time, everyone feels a certain yearning to return to a place in the past which sadly does not exist anymore. There’s a specific word to describe this. It’s called “Hiraeth”, a Welsh word which generally means a longing or desire for a home, a time, place, era, or person from the past. As all nostalgic feelings go, it denotes, or hints at an attempt to escape from stress of the present, even for but a brief moment. So it seems, Hiraeths may be what daydreams are made of, except for maybe the less sentimental or the grouch, who carry only a lesser amount of it. In my case however, instances of Hiraeth are not merely limited to daydreaming. They extend further to night dreams too.
I may easily forget a lot of things nowadays but I still pride myself in thinking that I could still describe, in minute detail, the complete setup of our old house along Ponciano Reyes street, including the very room where I was born. The old floorboards that creaked and slanted down a bit as one neared the wooden balcony, had always been one my favorite haunts, knee-crawled in it while surrounded by toy soldiers and all sorts of bric-a-brac.
From the time we transferred to an apartment along Mabini, up till our permanent residence in Belisario, Bajada, I have regularly dreamt of the Ponciano house of my grandparents. In them dreams, the setting would always involve a walk-through (or rather a walkabout of sorts), going from room to room and, as I recall, always marveling at new things that crop up during those dream states. For all you know, recurring dreams deserve upgrades just like everything else.
Another thing, my Hiraeth dreams always happen in summer time and it is almost summer now. I wonder what Freudian analysts can make out of this. In our present residence situated at a much higher elevation than the city proper, I have never really complained of the heat, especially at night time. As a matter of fact, lately, with the Siberian winds of January and the tropical depressions left and right in February, it had really been quite cold in our nest. For a while.
In the bedroom last night, I noted that we already had two electric fans on at the same time and at this, the matey said, what do you expect, it’s summer already. Dream time.
As it is, I am keeping my supply of Hiraeth freshly-stocked for the moment. As a friend once said, any one’s old home of the past is always where the heart is full and the soul is always understood. (whatever that means. I’m just citing him because I know he’ll be reading this.)
