Homesick: who hasn’t felt it?
Once, Autumn meant friction. Snits and pouts. Epic school-shopping wars: my taste vs Mom’s.
“Teal is your color, Laurie. It brings out your eyes.”
Teal: as in, our front door, sofa pillows, and afghan. Napkins. Glassware. Every single kitchen appliance.
Back then, Autumn also meant trips to The City: milkshakes poured from stainless steel cups; orange fruit jelly slices, mid-afternoon; a new hairstyle for school.
Autumn meant sleek binders and cellophaned No. 2 pencils. Glossy, spiral-bound possibility.
And yes, a teal jumper or sweater plus knee socks came home with us in department store bags. Autumn meant surrender.
Autumn meant having Mom to myself.
Feeling homesick recalls who (and what) we cherish
Does this happen to you? Yielding my “right” to exert my opinion softens me, physiologically. Perhaps there’s inner connective tissue that responds to willingness, releasing knuckles, fingers, then fist. Relaxing self-absorbed grasp.
Hands open to receive something unlooked for. Perhaps acceptance. Catharsis. Transformation.
But first, the pang.
Taking a shortcut through Nordstom’s—another planet for me these days—my senses flared and clamored:
gleaming makeup counters,
saleswomen in pastel smocks,
racks of bling and dizzying scents
like citrus and jasmine,
talc and hairspray,
miracle lotions,
a hint of Windex . . .
So foreign. So familiar.
I wanted my mom.
Feeling homesick reflects emerging opportunity
Homesickness can strike at any age. Are we ever too mature, or too secure, to feel it?
We may long for childhood’s house,
for family members, or climate,
a community—work, school, church—
a lifestyle, or even an era,
holiday tables and traditions,
a country, a culture, a tribe, a friend.
Will naming it somehow tame it? Perhaps pigeonholing the ache is secondary.
Shuffle through paint chips at a home store. Marketers keep renaming colors: endless gradations, nuances, trends.
Last week in Yellowstone National Park I saw my mama’s dream palette: wet jewels in unpromising places.
Rocked by longing, I sensed her voice: “It’s what you do with your feelings that matters. You can shine anywhere.”
Feeling homesick refreshes our best intentions
Over time relational ties may disperse like mist. Or percolate underground.
Memories sometimes resurface so we can reconnect. Or make peace, say a clean goodbye.
“When you see fog move against a backdrop of deep pines,” Annie Dillard writes, “it’s not the fog itself you see, but streaks of clearness floating across the air in shreds.”
“Now we see things imperfectly . . .”
Dementia shrouded Mom’s mind in her final years, changed her completely. At her memorial service, I wore teal everything—even her Navajo ring, turquoise stone the size of a robin’s egg.
What I wouldn’t give now for a shared day in The City. Or anywhere.
“At the death of a loved one, we must also bear the weight of unfinished love, guilt, sadness, relief,” writes Frederick Buechner.
As the holidays approach, will we welcome homesick feelings? They may signal a healing passage ahead.
Recall
Reflect
Refresh
Is homesickness rattling your branches? Stirring your roots?
What do you miss?
You might also like:
Longing: What It Wants, Where It Points
Symptoms of Homesickness and Ways to Cope with It
Homesick Writing exercise:
As a homesick teen immigrant in America, Frank McCourt scribbled in notebooks. Despite his abysmal childhood in Ireland, he kept Irish faces, voices, and places alive by listing the names of streets, describing neighbors, and priests, even recording things his mother and relatives said. Those scribbles kept him company. Gave him perspective.
The more concretely he described his past, the more it helped him cope. About the horrible bed he and two siblings shared, he wrote several paragraphs, including this: “a huge mattress with red hair sticking out, collapsing in the middle, fleas jumping all over us.” His composition teacher gave him an A+. McCourt soon filled a duffel bag with those notebooks. Eventually, he wrote Angela’s Ashes.
You might describe the where or what or who that you miss—in concrete detail. Write a paragraph or two, or a list. See what unfolds. (No pressure to write a book!) Share your favorite lines in the Comments if you wish.
Anne Renschler says
Always Laurie you stir my heart toward good sometimes hard but good. May 1st is the day my mom passed and memories flood.
Laurie Klein says
Dear Anne, I feel a vicarious pang as I read your words. Somehow, it lightens the sorrow a little—as if we’re keeping each other company in remembrance while we continue to process layers of memory. Such powerful, complex beings, these mothers who loved and raised and left us. Wishing you peace, friend, goodness and mercy at your heels.
Jody Collins says
Oh my…. can I relate, Laurie. I’ve only just begun scratching the surface of my mom memories–she died when I was only 33, she was 55. Different thoughts bubble from time to time, mostly about her singing. I treasure that gift the most, that I love to sing.
(we must share our mom stories sometime).
Until then…
Jody Collins says
{I Hit ‘enter’ too soon.}
One song in particular that makes me think of my mother is “Try to Remember” from the Fantasticks, sung by Josh Groban–she died in September and the old-fashioned song itself reminds me of a different time, a more innocent, tender time.
Sighing now just thinking about it.
Laurie Klein says
Oh, that would be a lovely and cathartic conversation—for us both. I remember that song, “Try to Remember”! My mom liked it too. I never did see the musical, did you? And I haven’t heard the updated version by Groban but bet it’s beautiful. It makes me grateful for the era we were raised in despite its problems.
The mother-daughter bond is so profoundly complex, or mine is, anyway. Layers to process, over time. How wonderful that your mom was a singer and bequeathed you both talent and love for the art. Did she sing lullabies as well?
Pacia Dixon says
Good morning dear one. Your essay reminded me that I am homesick for 63+ years of yesterday’s people and places. I savored every hug, every unique timbre of voice, every small bit of beauty, every monumental occasion, every season… and most of all, I’m homesick for the daily luxury of time I had to express the savoring. Working full time leaves me scant time and energy to record, reflect, respond the way I had grown accustomed. Yesterday, I fixed myself a cup of white ginger peach tea, stirred honey and coconut oil into it, and was homesick for a rainy morning in June a year ago, when I could share it with you. Your writing is a healing balm, a cup of tea shared with a good friend, a trigger to unleash spirals and teal paislies of creative expression. Thank you, as always, for your sublime words and pictures.❤
Laurie Klein says
Oh dear Pacia, that’s so deeply, widely, profoundly much to miss. In everything I’ve seen from you via FB you’ve been resolutely upbeat about the changes in your lives, embracing the learning curves as opportunities amid the continually changing personnel and guests you serve. Seasons like the one you’re in—and I believe it’s temporary!—seem to cost no less than everything. I wish I could wave a wand that made your hours and energies more elastic. I love how you respond in person, and in prayer, in clay, and paper, and paint and words, whatever’s at hand, to the world and people and ideas around you. May those daily responses within marinate and incubate and ripen as needed, always divinely directed. So grateful for times and endeavors and conversations and meals and tea we’ve shared, friend. I would add a heart icon here but sadly, I don’t know how. Love you, friend.
Diane says
Reading your penetrating view into missing someone with all that was in the relationship, affects me this evening particularly. An long sunny afternoon spent taking mom to the pioneer cemetery in the country, to plant mint on dad’s grave. Her hope is that the roots will growth as vigorously there as they have in her raised bed at home, keeping out weeds and marking it as the resting place of one who was deeply loved. The weight of knowledge, seeing her aging, losing/mismatching pieces of memory yet fully insistent about the accuracy of her statements. The stream of consciousness “conversation”. Beloved complicated mom, declining. I will do your writing exercise and see what crystallizes. Thanks and love, for baring your own heart and soul with beauty and meaning around it.
Laurie Klein says
Diane, what a day for the senses as well as memories. I catch glimmers of what that scene in the sunshine felt like for each of you from your words. And more than that, the acceptance unfolding in you, wrenching as it must feel, learning to speak the new “stream-of-consciousness” language with her. Being willing to. Letting the inconsistencies in the remembered storyline go—in recognition that you still get to hear her tell you a story.
Maybe it’s not so different from early days when our moms were our guides in language and learning in that we can still be a student in a way, choose sometimes to be a satellite in their wake again, taking in the way they see the world, accompanying them even as we also stand a little outside the scene and bear the sorrow of what is changing in them.
I’m seeing mint in a new light. I’ve mentally categorized it as invasive; now, I see it through your mom’s sensibilities as loving, scrambling, vigorous protection, claiming space, fragrant green sentinels on holy ground.
Kel says
Laurie-So poignant! I have been homesick for the olden days of when my two boys were home sharing laughter and love of movies and board games and their own special inside jokes that I didn’t get, but I it made my heart glad to know they have inside jokes. One lives here and the other in California with his beautiful bride…
Laurie Klein says
Kel, I’m catching a glimpse of those noisy, rollicking, rich-with-joy days through your words. I can almost imagine their banter over a board game. And the detail that the “inside jokes” you didn’t get made (and still make) your heart glad for them to have their secret language—that tells me something vital about who you are. Lucky sons and daughter-in-law! May the pangs of missing those incomparable times bring insights and growing richness.
Linda Jo says
Beautiful post, Laurie. I love reading your blog. You know how to step into those secret places. Love your exercise at the end, too.
Laurie Klein says
O Linda Jo, such a lovely thought coming from a fellow wordsmith. Thank you. My favorite book as a kid was The Secret Garden. 🙂
I’m glad you felt you could step into the story, so good to have company alongside!. I hope the exercise continues to prove fruitful for you, especially as you pursue your dream of bringing new characters alive on the page. May you find the secret places in each complex soul you write about, friend, so you can share them with all of us.
Nancy Ruegg says
I, too, remember the quintessential shopping trips with Mom. I was perhaps fourteen when we discovered a delightful phenomenon. The outfits we both agreed upon were the ones that received compliments–not the ones I liked but she didn’t, nor the ones she liked but I didn’t. After that, we no longer became as frustrated with the process. I love the bittersweet quote you shared of Frederick Buechner. He is so right: unfinished love, guilt, sadness, and relief do accompany the death of a loved one. It is painful. But it’s also a comfort to realize the universality of such emotions as we grieve. We suffer together this side of the veil. On the other side, however is finished love, no guilt, erased sadness, and perfect joy!
Laurie Klein says
Nancy, what a marvelous discovery you and your mom made, and the surrender of personal opinion by each of you in the process moves me. In fact, if I run with that a little, I imagine “trying on” something “new” and stepping out to the 3-way mirror with the sense the Trinity is reflecting back to me a truer image than what I can currently see. The Buechner quote really hit me this week. For me, it’s that word “unfinished” that does me in even more than the listed emotions. Yet even in the ongoing process, there’s grace, I believe. And as you point out, things will be different when we cross over. Thoroughly transformed. Transfigured? Not sure which word is more accurate. Just as you write in your last line with such moving anticipation here. Sometimes I get homesick for heaven too. 🙂
Nancy Ruegg says
Your personal comments feel like a hug, Laurie! P.S. From now on, I have a feeling every three-way mirror will remind me of the Trinity. Never thought of that before! 🙂 Blessings to you, Blogger Friend!
Laurie Klein says
You are dear to me!
Laurie Klein says
Hi Carol,
His thoughts have been influencing mine lately. Maybe I mentioned to you the book group I’m in is reading one of his books. Buechner was awarded the Pulitzer for his novel, Godric, which I read a looooong time ago. I think I may revisit that book and maybe some of his other fiction again, too.
Katherine says
Sunlight poring through the window and the view from dad’s ‘breakfast room’, the steaming, morning Silvana meadows just outside the door, the taste of hot, black coffee and raisin toast, the squeeze of my hand as he says ‘love you honey!’…..I miss this every day.
And I miss you, dear Laurie. This was a great suggestion!
Laurie Klein says
Katherine, your reminiscence here stirs each of my senses. Raisin toast was a shared comfort food with my mom.
Isn’t it amazing how writing down something so specific to our own story, in vivid detail, somehow chimes in the reader’s imagination and heart as well? Whoever said “God is in the details” knew it too. It always makes me feel more connected to others, less alone, more aware of how universal our experiences are.
I miss you too, dear friend, and hope hope hope the plan works out and I get to see next month!
Jenneth Graser says
Invokes emotion and inspiration. Thank you Laurie, poignant reminiscing.
Laurie Klein says
Jenneth, I’m grateful for your feedback. Thank you. It’s so true, isn’t it, that sharing stories and thoughts with openhearted readers and listeners often mends places in our own lives in the process. I’m especially honored to have your thoughts today as you enter a season of less frequent online engagement. I’m guessing the movie that impacted you may have been based on the book by Dave Eggers. I find his voice and vision and work compelling. I have yet to read The Circle but it’s on my list.
Larry says
Your better than medicine .. Laurie Klein ..
Laurie Klein says
Larry, my friend, you definitely have the gift of encouragement! I so often start writing to keep my own spirits up. Knowing it becomes a tonic for others in the process is reward, indeed. “Take 2 Kleins and call me in the morning, lol.”