from June 9

Am sitting with a cup of coffee trying to find a word for a feeling. Have just returned to the Bay Area in California where I lived for 16 years and before that spent many teenage summers and holidays. It was such a magical place to me. My dad took my sister and I up to the top of Twin Peaks one evening when I was 12 years old and I quietly vowed to live here one day. There were some layovers along the Panhandle and NYC but I eventually made it. Never thought I would leave but then slowly over time something began to shift. Whether it was me, the city, the times or some combination thereof I began to imagine other places and eventually left for Oregon.

Am visiting for a bittersweet reason. A celebration of life for a beloved figure in my life. The life partner of a soul sister. Am trying to find a word to describe returning home to a place that is no longer home that feels both foreign and familiar. People and places we have loved are gone and there is a longing and missing that weighs heavy and that can’t be (re)captured.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is my best resource for these moments. John Koenig spent 12 years describing feelings we experience but until now had no words for and compiled them into this gorgeous collection. It is marvelous! He also has a YouTube channel with illustrating videos.

The closest I can find that captures this feeling of being in a familiar place that is no longer a home are Kenopsia: The Eeriness of Places Left Behind and/or keir, n. an ill-fated attempt to reenact a beloved memory years later, returning to a place that once felt like home, only to find it now feels uncannily off, like walking through a wax museum of your own childhood.

Do you know this feeling? Can you imagine yourself still moving through all the places you have ever lived. Perhaps we are tucked away in timelines. The then versions of ourselves are still wandering everywhere we ever have been?