Unraveling the Mysteries of Pink Skies

I smiled to myself as I turned the chosen card around. The top half was colored in starry patches of pink skies with whirls of dark purple shades in between that almost looked like galaxies. At the centre was a mountain peak emerging from a bed of clouds and the text below reading the following words: Hiraeth. Longing for home. Homesick for the stars.

Did I believe in reading cards? I’m not sure. Yet, I was stunned by the coincidence; it almost felt as though the card was indeed speaking to me, accurately capturing the theme I had been intensely dealing with on this journey: home.

Born and raised in Switzerland, it would only be natural to presume that to be home, right? I’m highly fortunate to be surrounded by my family, some of my closest friends and the people I grew up with. But I can’t help but feel there has always been more out there waiting for me. Something beyond the borders of countries, something without a name, that couldn’t be described but only experienced and felt.

I refused to accept home to be merely a place, a needle that that can be placed precisely onto a map, its sole existence lying in a pair of coordinates of the place of birth, education or work. That seemed arbitrary, with little choice involved, as the greatest and most important choice of all had already been made: The decision of when and where someone was born had sealed billions of fates. The place we call home would only be the result of countless micro decisions, layers upon layers like a French Mille-Feuille, each paper-thin sheet representing another marking of our lives, from the families we were born into to the opportunities of our times, shaped by the epoch we lived in. Many people seem to grasp home as something defined externally, where slowly but inevitably the course of the day to falls into patterns of mundane routine, from sunrise to sunset with a misleading sense of predictability.

Observing that from a distance, I longed for something more. A sudden rush of a new desire welled up in me, creating a space for dreams and endless possibilities. For a long time I fought it, but little did I know, that resisting the pull would have the opposite effect and only make it stronger. Why did I not just accept it in the first place? The main answer lies in the force of that inner voice that stops and scorns us at each step of the way. While sometimes necessary, more often than not its push leaves us with feelings of unease and anxiety, speaking to us with skepticism and hostility, akin to an unwelcome guest that does not wish to leave: guilt.

I thought that by choosing one path, I was unavoidably rejecting the other and by doing so, committing an act of injustice. It almost felt like a violation. What exactly was it that I was seeking? What is ‚more’? And does wanting more mean that I had less? I did not have the answers to these questions, thus I could not justify my own thoughts which felt too abstract to comprehend. That was another reason why I tried to keep these feelings at bay: fear. Leaving the safe harbor of home and stepping into unknown waters unsure of what was lurking beneath the surface, had something thrilling but also unsettling about it. There were so many things that could go wrong, and my mind had already painted a series of several worst-case scenarios, my usually strong trait of imaginary thinking working rather against me. The fear of falling once again fell in center stage. So I did what most people do. I procrastinated. Thoughts like not now, the time is not quite right, I’m not there yet, not this week, not this month, maybe next year, or maybe the year after that started to dominate my inner dialogue. These tactics shifted the once desired object away to a place so distant that it became irrelevant.

There is a word in German called Heimweh, which translates into homesickness. Although I have yet to experience it myself, it seems like a very common feeling among the circles I move in. Interestingly, it is also known as a Swiss Malaise. Conversely, there is the concept of Fernweh which would roughly translate into wanderlust. Though seemingly on the opposite ends of the spectrum, both terms share one thing in common and that is they cannot be ignored. They are stubborn and persist with a remarkable sense of patience, knocking on one’s door and unwilling to leave until we answer. The tug of Fernweh never left. It held its breath and waited for me to muster courage to finally open the door. It was patient but determined and spoke to me directly, whispering through the cracks of the frame, wanting to be heard. It is going to be one day or day one, it reminded me. Dropping my gaze back to the card, I thought to have heard the same voice that had spoken to me once again. As I was looking intently at the card in my hands, the mystery of the word Hiraeth began unraveling itself before me.

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