Sehnsucht

                                                   It is an interesting facet of the human character that we do occasionally become fixated on things. Sometimes those things are unimportant, sometimes they are integral to our very being. I cannot remember when I was first exposed to this German word, ‘sehnsucht’ which means a ‘longing, desire, yearning or craving’. It is a composite word (Such are so common in German) which psychologists have elaborated on to mean ‘a yearning for ideal alternative experiences’. I think that most of us understand this very well as so often the grass is greener on the other side. I do remember the context in which it was being used. It referred to the many journeys of exploration in the past which often meant years away from home. The explorers often spending months at sea for infrequent days on land, they filled their leisure moments with songs and tales of where they were from. They had a yearning to be back amongst their loved ones. So the time came when their ship came home and they had all the joys of many reunions but, sadly, the pleasures only lasted a few days. Itchy feet wished them elsewhere, they had a longing to be back aboard and abroad, raising the sails and setting off again. It was a case of everywhere they were seemed far from home, even when they were at home! Home indeed was where the heart was, which wasn’t always home! I might be wrong but that is my understanding of it anyway.

Why, Dear Reader, did this word suddenly come to me again on Monday, August 16^th 2021? Well, here in North Vancouver after many days of sun, heat and bright blue skies, it rained. Not sudden rain, violently delivered and rapidly gone, but a morning and afternoon of a steady, gentle mizzle, the best kind of consistency. This has brought us some relief from the smoke coming in from the forest fires in the Interior, an immense welcome cooling from a heat that was, at times, debilitating. This rain, so frequent and constant in the other three seasons, produces then such dreams of summer, longings for a bit of blue, a bit of dry, a lot of sun and days where we can sit on a bench and read a book, or get out on the water to recreate. So, I guess, after a few days of showers we will be wanting a bit of our sun back again, although the forest fire ridden Interior could do with a few weeks of saturation, a chance to eke out the last month of our summer in pleasurable outdoor pursuits. So that is my bit of sehnsucht for the moment, friends, except that now we have rain again I do feel at home again and have no current yearning for the weather to be any different. But then, Dear Friends, I have always been a bit strange!