Sara Gallardo

Strange homesicknesses: Audrey Hall translates Sara Gallardo

Argentine Pampas. Photo Credit: Lauren Svejcar
Argentine Pampas. Photo Credit: Lauren Svejcar

 A friend who knows about these things once told me about the existence of a German word, Fernweh, which she translates to mean: feeling homesick for places you've never been. Reverso renders it as wanderlust, but my friend explains the word conveys not so much a lustful craving for travel as a sense of sadness and loss in staying put. A closer approximation might be distance-sickness, filled with all the ache, yearning, and nostalgia that homesickness might evoke, only for far-off places rather than the familiar.

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