WHITNEY VALE

Ashland MFA Alum

HIRAETH

The self-same song that found a path/Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, /She stood in tears amid the alien corn~ John Keats

Hiraeth (noun): A deep longing for home. That’s thin, probably because there is no direct translation. Hiraeth longs for its own past, but like it’s literal meaning, that past is “long gone.” Other more felt definitions include homesickness, longing, yearning, an unattainable craving for a person or place—that may have never existed. The experience of hiraeth is tinged with melancholy. I feel that when I look at the night sky. I felt it the first time I remember seeing the Milky Way in my early 20s. I went camping with friends in Oregon, close to the Rogue River. Closest town, Medford. I am not naturally outdoorsy. I am no camper. But something about the trip called to my heart and I asked to come along.

What did I do? Just walked down the steps of the rented camper and glanced up? Glanced up and felt the hand of heaven pull? My entire spine curved up; head tilted. I walked around in a small circle, slightly off balance. Off balanced by beauty. Splendid night sky, clouded gash, spirals of dusty light, so close I felt if I lifted my hand, it would disappear into a cosmic cleft. Home to over 200 billion stars. An ache began in my throat, to speak into that silence. Some tiny thought arose, that maybe I was born from there. Perhaps my soul slid down a cord of light and I entered my mother’s womb.

One morning, early under a cerulean sky, I walked across the field toward the river. Bees swarmed thick bushes of ripe blackberries. The air was fragrant. A buck emerged out of what seemed nowhere, his head crowned by large antlers. I stopped walking; I held my breath. He saw me. Was he twenty yards away? I am bad at distance. I must have gone to my knees. Beauty takes me that way. He ran straight toward me. Weighted air and action converged. He leaped over me. I imagined he left a mark on my shoulder. An insignia, a star.

Years later, I sit on the floor in a circle at a spiritual counselor’s apartment in Sherman Oaks, California. This is a group therapy session, and I am expressing my deep-rooted fear that my mother had not wanted me. As I speak, the energy of my body begins to pull up and away. I am conscious of where I am but also of traveling up through the ceiling into the sky. I am remembering my birth and seeing my birth. This must be astral traveling, crossing time. A soft cry emerges from my throat. I see myself in a constellation of stars, whirling. I see an infant’s face crumpled with fear, I see the infant spinning, surrounded by its auric field. The aura is a bridge between the spiritual and material worlds, layers of light. And then I am the baby. My soul entered the baby’s body during labor.

Back in the circle, I fall suddenly into my body crying. Gratitude washes through me. Whatever fear my mother may have had about me dissolved in that moment of connection. I felt wanted at last.

Loneliness fuels much of my creativity. Maybe I am really an outlier because I am from a galaxy far, far away.

It may have been 1977 when I had the dream. Forty-four years later, small fragments remain vivid. I am walking in a jungle. Unafraid, barefoot, my feet cushioned by the thick plant material. Verdant growth surrounds me. An infant is held close to my chest. I am female. Dressed in red raiment, a sort of uniform, but short, my legs are exposed. I am tall with waist length blonde hair. I cannot see the features of my child. Only a swaddling of shining material—and the face seems to emit light. I walk in anticipation of meeting my group. Memory blurs here, taken over by the sound of a great machine. Lifting my head and listening, I begin to run through the jungle, clutching the infant. My arms not free, I stumble several times. Panic is rising, I call out in a language I do not recognize. No answer. There are no other people. I feel completely alone as I struggle to my feet and run, run, run through the great stands of trees, vines whipping past me. I catch myself. I am at a cliff. And rising into the sky, a great silver vessel, what can only be a spacecraft. Leaving without me. Leaving me. The child has become my heart somehow, a disc of light in my chest. I look up at the sky and plead for the ship to return. It does not.

Periodically, these fragments return in my mind, I pat them down looking for secrets. I felt abandoned and alone in those early years in Los Angeles. It is simple to interpret. And yet, every starry sky seeks the light in my heart, which always responds with longing. Los Angeles was my home for almost seventeen years, though I lived in ten different places.

Home. I am still seeking my place, dwelling, abode, residence. Dwelling, a strange word that meandered through time from stupor, hinder, delay. Domicile never feels right. Home is a simple truth: Honey, I’m home! Anyone, I’m home!

I have been drawn to literary homes., such as Alcott’s Little Women. From attic to parlor, the March family became at home in my heart. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden may have begun my lifelong love of nature, nature as a dwelling place for both the practicalities of weeding and seeding, and also a hallowed awakening to the soul song of connection.

I adore TV culture’s homes, Judging Amy, Parenthood, This Is Us. I continue to watch Bluebloods for the Sunday family dinner, guaranteed each episode. Home is noun and verb, a place where I am known. My childhood homes held anger room by room, dissatisfaction, loneliness. I escaped into the harbors of imagination. Hiraeth, pronounced something like, “here wrath” a longing for a place that never existed.

Home is a threaded tapestry, a narrative ever expanding. I am made of stories, to paraphrase Muriel Rukeyser. While growing up I lived in books because they were the companions that did not leave, as l left city after city. Books and words became both vessel and resting place.

I am writing myself home. I am remembering the cliff swallows on the quarry in Massachusetts. I am remembering the swallows of Capistrano. I am remembering the swallows in my grandfather’s barn, always returning, ever returning with their forked-tail acrobatics. Yearning tugs me back. Longing for a colony of love. Swallows often return to the same nest, year after year. I have always returned to Kentucky, hunting for my birds of a feather.

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WHITNEY VALE, MFA, CREATIVE NONFICTION FROM ASHLAND UNIVERSITY, HAS ESSAYS IN ENTROPY,THE RUMPUS, ESSAY DAILY. PUBLISHED POETRY INCLUDES A CHAPBOOK, JOURNEY WITH THE FERRYMAN (FINISHING LINE PRESS) AND POEMS IN GYROSCOPE REVIEW: THE CRONE ISSUE, HARPY HYBRID REVIEW, PROSPECTUS: A LITERARY OFFERING, AUTUMN SKY POETRY DAILY. SHE HAS BEEN A FINALIST FOR BOTH THE JOY HARJO AWARD AND BARRY LOPEZ AWARD.