Homesickness. When I'm here, I feel it, observe it. Its relation to silence. Homesickness is deeply connected to the silence of language. The essence of homesickness is not that a person is alone, even amidst external clamors and encounters. The spoken language falls silent within us. Like the sun setting on the horizon. A horizon that is always shaded and "covered": hills, blooming apple trees, fences, or the hustle and bustle of the big city; the rush of cars, people, crowds. But perhaps a more accurate image is when the sun plunges into the sea. In homesickness, the "silence" of our mother tongue lies on a peculiar horizon. Just as it adheres to the roof of our mouth, the language rests on the surface of our subconscious. Like the Son of God, it walks on the "sea," above the restless inner waters. This is homesickness. When our language stands on our subconscious and observes.
Our homesickness can be for our mother, a woman, a wife, our children, friends, our garden, our room, our library, our father; our grandparents' house. Our homesickness can be for the awakening of our mother tongue within us. Our homesickness can be for God, at the end of a fulfilling life. Perhaps this is the climax of homesickness because when it arrives, then, there flames within us every landscape and encounter marked by homesickness. They are dismantled, discarded later, as our human language is being dismantled.
Homesickness is captivity just like language. Like our mother tongue, a well-constructed bridge, and yet constantly collapsing. Homesickness makes me understand that our language is both liberation and captivity simultaneously. It makes us forget the pain of separation from the mother, the pain of breaking away from her. Because this is the origin of all homesickness. For a woman, a family, wine, happiness, and home. Our language, given to us out of love from our parents and environment, compensates for many things. Primarily for this "first separation."
Years ago, I gave up painting. Every fought and struggled painting was an eternal dissatisfaction. Then, I decided to paint with words. And today, I understand that the first abandoned home shines through even in the most eloquent, poetic language. The honesty in the Catholicism's veneration of Mary is palpable. It does not pretend that the first separation can be forgotten. Perhaps this is why Catholic church interiors, from Romanesque to Gothic in stone and ultimately in the glittering gold of the Baroque, attempt most to reconstruct the lost "womb." Like the separation from God. The paternal house; left there by the prodigal son for a new, independent language. Essentially, even the whitewashed interiors of Calvinist churches cannot hide the ultimate foundations of our language and homesickness. The more accurate, the more eloquent the language, the literary language: the more the bell becomes a silent one. When both the body and tongue of the bell still sway, in slow motion.
The petals of the blossoming apple tree in green. A beautiful spring evening. The tree could not be more motionless. Well, this is homesickness. Or the movement with which I prune the climbing vine that runs up to the house wall and under the roof tiles. When you become one with the primal undulation of vegetation. When your room, your walls breathe in a prosaic way: they just exist. Like the Son of God in bread. Because this too is homesickness. Captivity; and questioning within us.
The most beautiful expression of homesickness was during the afternoon walk today. Bluebell blossoms in the forest. I haven't seen them before. Fresh, vibrant green, carrying strength. These leaves. Below, at the base of the trees, like an infinite sea: lilac blossoms. Green and blue horizon. Walking in it, in its fragrances, the colorful, ambiguous world of our subconscious; a world that our subconscious could last tame in childhood. As Jesus calms and quiets the sea, even in his apostles. The peculiar complementarity of green and bluebells in homesickness. Homesickness for angels, love, homeland; for shared wine and years.
And this homesickness is already the Gospel. In its words, there is restlessness, and in the Son of God, there is bluebell blossoming. This homesickness lifts the trees high and keeps moving, elevating the surface of our subconscious and our daily lives. It doesn't matter if there is a God or not in our consciousness. What matters is homesickness, what lies behind homesickness. This; the balance of balance within and beyond God. "I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are." (John 17:11)
May 18, 2010, Wiltshire-Marlborough-Catford
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