Our theme for the month of June is “spirits.”
Note: Three is a magic number, so if you’re in the mood for a trilogy, follow or precede this post with “Gen L” and “Echoes and Afterimages.”
Back in my junior year at Calvin, when I was trying to take my mind off worrying whether I’d die single to get more in touch with my emotions, I went down the rabbit hole of words from other languages that don’t have an English equivalent. Words like dadirri, an Aboriginal word for listening to something sacred or spiritually significant, sabi, a Japanese word for Julianne Moore—I mean, someone who stays beautiful as they age (so, Julianne Moore), or s’apprivoiser, a French term for the process of different groups building mutual trust between one another. Relevant to today’s post are three such non-translatable words.
Fernweh, a German word that phonetically translates to “farsickness.” (Fern=”far”; weh=”pain”/”misery”/”woe.”) It’s longing for places you’ve either never been to or that don’t exist. Think of your childhood fantasies of being whisked off to Hogwarts or Narnia or Camp Half-Blood.
Anemoia, an Ancient Greek word for the feeling of wanting to relive something you never lived through in the first place. It’s like that old saying “you can never go home again,” only “home” is a place or time period you weren’t alive for.
Saudade, a Portuguese word for yearning for things that could have been. Ever wondered if your life would be different had you done something(s) different? You’ve experienced saudade.
Emotions, even negative emotions, have their place. Anger, like fire, can rage out of control, but fire under control can cook food and provide light, and righteous anger is…righteous. Lust gets a bad rep, but if you’re in a relationship and your special someone doesn’t rev your engines, should the two of you be together? Anemoia, fernweh and saudade are also not inherently bad. If John F. Kennedy hadn’t had fernweh, the moon would still be a mystery. Storytelling, mythology, visual art—none of these things could exist without anemoia. Sometimes, a shot of saudade is what you need to stop wondering and try to make ‘what could have been’ into ‘what is.’
However, anger can turn into abusiveness or resentment, lust can turn into affairs or rape, and anemoia, fernweh and saudade can be hindrances as easily as they can be helps.
I have a pretty active imagination. I have to, considering creative writing is one of my primary hobbies. But sometimes, my imagination—my fernemoide, if you would—works against me. I find myself looking in on spirit worlds, worlds where what I wanted to happen did. A world where I did go into publishing the way I visualized through most of my college years, or I’m published already, and successful at that. A world where I’m living on my own like my older sister and my friends have for years. Or where I’m married/engaged and having kids, again, like most of my friends. Worlds where international travel is something in my price range, and/or where one of the girls I’ve liked liked me back and I’m not Amoeba Pringle Man, I imagine what it would be like to wake up as one of those friends we all have, the ones who seemingly succeed at life without trying, the ones where you love them like family but secretly want to shake them by the shoulders while demanding, “WHY. IS. YOUR. LIFE. SO. PERFECT?!?”
For my own sake, I have to close the door to those spirit worlds.
Like I said earlier, emotions are good but can easily be perverted. And that also applies to emotions who only have names in non-English languages.
Fernweh unchecked can turn into retreating into a fantasy world, standards that are impossibly high, or envy and resentment towards people who can go where you can’t.
Anemoia can leave you trapped in nostalgia, or turn you into a reactionary, hostile to the idea of moving forward.
Saudade can motivate you to try to make your wants reality, or it can trap you in a prison of regret, or drive you to unscrupulousness in trying to get what you want.
I have to remember these spirit worlds are fantasies. No matter how effortlessly cool some of my friends seem, they have their own problems, problems I’d subsequently have to deal with if I could take their life on as my own. No matter how I want my life to be different—traveling, finding that special someone, being able to support myself and live on my own—if/when those come to pass, they won’t live up to the picture-perfect idealized version I “saw” looking in the window of a spirit world.
Like the echoes and afterimages, I treasure the spirit worlds I look into.
And like the echoes and afterimages, I’ll treasure them and then try to make the spiritual a reality.
Noah Keene graduated from Calvin University in December 2021 with a major in creative writing and a minor in Spanish. He currently resides in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He spends his free time reading and putting his major to good use by working on his first novel. See what he’s reading by following him on Instagram @peachykeenebooks and read his other personal writing by going to thekeenechronicles.com.
