Hiraeth

Have you ever felt a connection with a place you’ve never been?  In my dreams, I am often in an unknown place but generally in the same setting.  I feel a strange sense of familiarity and belonging to the dream location when I wake.  How is that possible?  Hiraeth, a Welsh Word, describes this feeling.  It is a complex word that conveys a deep longing and melancholy for something lost, never found, or can't be recaptured.  A sense of incompleteness, or a feeling of pain and joy that are too tightly intertwined to untangle.  It means a nostalgic longing, but it’s a little more elusive than that.  It’s a strong feeling of missing something irretrievably lost. 

I have been away for nearly 50 days and will head home in 12 days.  I use the word "home," but what is a home?  When I was young, the family moved often.  I attended at least seven different K-12 schools.  I lived in several cities and seven structures for the first decade of my adult life.  I never learned the attachment that most do to a "home."   I find solace wherever I may be in the world.  Am I missing something?  Some people say you can only be fulfilled with a place called home.  I will never know, as I have never learned to cherish material locations in six decades.  Standing on the soil is home, meaning I am alive instead of being covered in soil.

Today, I walked with the dog, followed by an hour-long Zwift ride.  I thought I would go outside, but it was rainy.  It is a good day to clean and do the laundry.

I feel better, yet I still have trouble breathing.  The throat is closing up; it all seems to function below the neck.  I will use the nebulizer a few times a day and see if it improves my lungs.  I was surprised at the nutrition report for yesterday.  I am tracking intake in detail using Cronometer and found the following:

• Choline at 244.6 mg, 44% of the recommended intake

• Vitamin E at 8.3mg, 55% of the recommended intake

• Protein at 115.8 g, 57% of the recommended intake

• Magnesium at 12.8 mg, 61% of the recommended intake

• Potassium at 2,313mg, 68% of the recommended intake

• Calcium at 2,301.7, 230% of the recommended intake

• Sodium at 3,843.5mg, 256% of the recommended intake

Since this is just one day, I will not focus on any changes. I prefer a fuller week of data before I commence changes.

Carry on my friends, Carry on.