Paralian's Querencia
Apr. 22nd, 2019 10:03 pmAt my grandmother Ann's house at Ruapuke, where Ann herself currently is not. (Hello Ann! I hope your travels are going well). Strange to be here without her, I don't know when that last happened. The house is folded in a little bit of bush at the top of a bush-covered hill, farms to either side, the sea visible from the side deck between wind-shaped manuka and kanuka. Still on a metal road, though the tar-seal comes much further than it did when I was a child.
There hasn't been beach-walking, because of pouring rain all morning; but that's welcome for both garden and water tank, and there have been hot cross buns and a lamb roast, neither of which would have been possible at Onewhero where the oven's currently bung; there has been Upwords and Backgammon, and Angela bringing conversation and delicious pears and apples from her house down the hill. And my cold is clearing up, although![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seahearth has got it now (sorry about that, seahearth).
There is a nicely-illustrated little book here, new since I last visited, called Other-wordly, (by Yee-Lum Mak and Kelsey Garrity-Riley), of good words from various languages which English doesn't have or doesn't use much. Here are some I want to hang on to, though there are many other good ones:
Cwtch (Welsh): A hug or cuddle; a safe space; the space or cupboard under the stairs
Abditory (English): A place into which you can disappear; a hiding or storage place.
Offing (English, a word that's been hiding from me in plain sight): The deep, distant stretch of the ocean still visible from land; the foreseeable future.
Paralian (English): One who lives by the sea.
Raðljóst (Icelandic): Enough light to find your way.
Hiraeth (Welsh): Homesickness for a home to which you cannot return; yearning, nostalgia, grief for the lost places of your past.
Tartle (Scots): To hesitate when introducing or meeting someone because you've forgotten their name.
Balter (English): To dance artlessly, without particular grace or skill, but usually with enjoyment.
Tacenda (English): Matters to be passed over in silence.
Sobremesa (Spanish): Time spent around the table after lunch or dinner (probably a heavy one) talking to the people with whom you shared the meal.
Querencia (Spanish): A place from which one's strength is drawn, where one feels at home; a place of fullest self.
I don't know a word for the particular vividness given to tree-green and grass-green hills when full sunlight falls on them from under a dark gray sky. We had that this afternoon, and a rainbow, and a misting rain lit like snow against the sun. Now it's late, with thunder in the offing.
There hasn't been beach-walking, because of pouring rain all morning; but that's welcome for both garden and water tank, and there have been hot cross buns and a lamb roast, neither of which would have been possible at Onewhero where the oven's currently bung; there has been Upwords and Backgammon, and Angela bringing conversation and delicious pears and apples from her house down the hill. And my cold is clearing up, although
seahearth has got it now (sorry about that, seahearth). There is a nicely-illustrated little book here, new since I last visited, called Other-wordly, (by Yee-Lum Mak and Kelsey Garrity-Riley), of good words from various languages which English doesn't have or doesn't use much. Here are some I want to hang on to, though there are many other good ones:
Cwtch (Welsh): A hug or cuddle; a safe space; the space or cupboard under the stairs
Abditory (English): A place into which you can disappear; a hiding or storage place.
Offing (English, a word that's been hiding from me in plain sight): The deep, distant stretch of the ocean still visible from land; the foreseeable future.
Paralian (English): One who lives by the sea.
Raðljóst (Icelandic): Enough light to find your way.
Hiraeth (Welsh): Homesickness for a home to which you cannot return; yearning, nostalgia, grief for the lost places of your past.
Tartle (Scots): To hesitate when introducing or meeting someone because you've forgotten their name.
Balter (English): To dance artlessly, without particular grace or skill, but usually with enjoyment.
Tacenda (English): Matters to be passed over in silence.
Sobremesa (Spanish): Time spent around the table after lunch or dinner (probably a heavy one) talking to the people with whom you shared the meal.
Querencia (Spanish): A place from which one's strength is drawn, where one feels at home; a place of fullest self.
I don't know a word for the particular vividness given to tree-green and grass-green hills when full sunlight falls on them from under a dark gray sky. We had that this afternoon, and a rainbow, and a misting rain lit like snow against the sun. Now it's late, with thunder in the offing.
