Fernweh

It was in 2003 when I moved away from the city I grew up in and relocated to a town about 100 miles north. The place never felt unfamiliar and that is not because I had been there before as a child with my father, it simply felt like the place of my dreams. It’s been 23 years now that I call this town home. Over the years it has changed, like all places do. It has lost quite a few farms and trees to make way for buildings and bridges. There are more people and more cars, it no longer feels like the small town that welcomed me first. People don’t smile as much as they used to and they rarely engage in small talk. Everyone is busy with their own pursuit. It has become a city.

I have a longing for the older version. One which was quieter, without the hustle and desperation of a community wanting to be seen as metropolitan. Time, as far as I know is linear and as much as I crave for the old, it won’t retrace. Every time I commute between the two cities, I see smaller towns and villages enroute and I wonder if I can find peace in any of those. I often feel like getting down from the bus on an impulse and walk deep into these towns, to see if they can offer me what I am looking for, but I don’t actually do it. Probably because I already know that while the place may look peaceful, a deeper look will reveal an equally troubled state. Aspirations have outgrown geographies and its only fair.

Sometimes, when I travel far from home and it is rare these days, I seek out such places. A walk in the hills or a quiet moment in a temple seems way more rewarding than say an adventure ride or an evening in the bar. The problem is, when I find such a quiet place and having briefly absorbed the peace it offers, my mind pushes me back towards the city. Strange, isn’t it? This yearning to be somewhere and having reached such a place the eagerness to be back where I belong. Where I belong? I am not sure of that to be honest. My mind wanders, perpetually, never truly settling. I wonder when this doubt creeped in. I think I was very sure of this place being my home, something has changed though recently.

The eagerness and aching to be somewhere else, away from home, that is what Fernweh means, it’s a German word. It’s a fleeting feeling. I dream of being away, a place far away from where I am, but only momentarily. The intense longing is real but not lasting. It’s not wanderlust, travel and desire to explore places attract me no more. I find most places much the same, characterless. A cafe in this city is same as that in another. A street here is same as a street there. Rarely does a place exude character and when it does it often seems borrowed, a mask of sorts.

So that’s what it is, a tug of war, the craving and ache to find a place of desire and the pullback to be where you are. I don’t know if this sounds sane, but that’s what it is.