h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a tricky feeling to explain, this. It's like home-sickness for a home you haven't stayed at yet. An emotion almost exactly like homesickness, but without a focal point.

Wanderlust's not it, but it's the closest I can think of.

Has anyone got an inkling about what I mean?

Josef Eichendorff called it 'Fernweh' - which has nothing to do with television. It means 'the passionate desire to be somewhere in the distance'. It was one of the basics in his understanding of the Germn Romantic movement...

That's why he wrote:

'To whom God wishes to show great favour,
He sends into the wide world.'

Or why Goethe loved the Mediterranean:

'Do you know the land where the lemons bloom?
You don't? You'll get to know it.'

Now, I think that's a little bit like that gospel song:

'I'm kind of homesick for a country where I've never been before...'

That song's called 'Beulah Land'. Beulah isn't a dumb name. It means 'married'.

Maybe our longing for a new place is just the recognition that we aren't wedded to anything we have experienced so far?

You ask for a word, you get a sermon!

It's Sunday...

You beat me to it: I would have said Fernweh too.

And little things like this are why I love the hootoo community. I'd never heard of fernweh before.

TRiG.

Have you experienced it, though? I'll bet you have!

Does fernweh have a literal translation?

"Fern" would be "distant". "Weh" = pain, I think.

Dmitri's remark about television was a pun on Fernsehen = German for TV (distant viewing )

Or maybe ache...but then we're getting into nuances.

Oy, vey.

Vey = Weh? Makes sense.

Exactly.

but don't be confusing Fernweh with Wanderlust

I never know which of those I have.

yearning!!!

there is a feeling like homeickness in welsh called 'hiraith' but itss more of a desire to be somewhere else

Or maybe Ferien-weh (a yearning for holidays). I get that a lot..

I usually called it 'itchy feet'

"there is a feeling like homeickness in welsh called 'hiraith' but itss more of a desire to be somewhere else"

I thought a desire to be somewhere else was just called "living in Wales".

Ferien-Weh's a good one. I'm a chronic patient too!

There's a quote by Swedish author (among other things) Marianne Ahrne. Haven't found it online, so I'll quote from memory (translated from Swedish into English, at that):

'There are two places in the world where you will feel at home; one is the place where you grew up and the other the place where your soul belongs.'

>>It's like home-sickness for a home you haven't stayed at yet.>>

Ever arrived in a place completely new to you and immediately got a feeling of 'ah, feels good to be home!'? I have, and it's one specific place miles and miles away from where I was born and grew up - a different country, even.

And each time I've travelled there again, I've gotten the same feeling of 'finally back home!' again.

So I keep going there every few years, because it makes me feel 'whole'.

I know what you mean, Titania. I felt exactly that way when we got to Ireland.

Can your ancestors give you memories? Who knows? All I knew was that it didn't feel the same as other new places, and I'd moved around a lot.