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
Carry on my friends, Carry on.