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Now spring has come again, the season that\u2019s best for hope. Post-Lenten promises are fresh as a baby\u2019s breathing, and the failures that eventually spoil them are as far away as the height of summer\u2019s heat.<\/p>\nNow spring has come again, the season that\u2019s best for hope. Post-Lenten promises are fresh as a baby\u2019s breathing, and the failures that eventually spoil them are as far away as the height of summer\u2019s heat.<\/p>\n
Hope can make us believe in endings as well as beginnings, in the idea that we can accomplish the hard tasks of life and see them to the finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will get done,\u201d says hope, settling a resolve into our hearts. \u201cDespite all, it will get done.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, as usual, I get pensive about things coming to a close. When years of labor spent in achieving something are about to meet resolution, there\u2019s part of me that puts on the brakes\u2014not strong enough to stop the momentum, but strong enough to set my mind churning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat now?\u201d becomes the question. Achievement ends purpose, and purpose gives meaning. When foundering around for purpose, we can\u2019t help but feel disoriented.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve heard people express what I\u2019m describing along these lines: \u201cWithout what I\u2019ve been doing for so long, I expect I\u2019ll be a bit lost.\u201d And that feeling is all the more profound when the end is an event more necessary than relished, more required than sought.<\/p>\n
The Germans are always good at giving words to concepts that we all know, but have never given a name. That\u2019s why I turned to them when I was looking for a term that would fit. After all, Germany is the home of much modern philosophy, and the phenomenologists were the ones who delved into the power of empathy\u2014of consciousness and experience.<\/p>\n
Of course, we all know some words: Schadenfreude<\/em>, the pleasure derived from someone else\u2019s pain; but there\u2019s also Fremschamen<\/em>, which is the mortification we experience when we see someone else humiliated; and Fernweh<\/em>, which apparently is the opposite of homesickness\u2014i.e., a yearning to be anywhere but where you are.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve noticed that many of these concepts involve pain of some sort, but the Germans also have words for the pleasure of relaxing after a hard day\u2019s work: Feierabend<\/em>; for having a song stuck in your head: Ohrwurm<\/em>; and for the lack of knowledge that should be, but is not, possessed: Bildungsl\u00fccke<\/em>. I\u2019m told that some of these words may just be idioms; regardless, there\u2019s pleasure in finding a nominalization for something experienced but never spoken of (is there a word for that<\/em> too?\u2014the delight of discovering a term?).<\/p>\n The word that comes closest to what I\u2019m describing is Torschlusspanik<\/em>, which is roughly described as the \u201cpanic of the gate,\u201d a sensation that comes when you feel closed in by life\u2019s circumstances. But that\u2019s not exactly right for what I mean. What I need is a word for having worked diligently, tirelessly, to achieve some result that isn\u2019t particularly desired\u2014or isn\u2019t desired at all. It\u2019s something that must<\/em> be, that should <\/em>be, but won\u2019t be rejoiced over when it comes to be.<\/p>\n This must be a common emotional state; it has to be akin to the feeling a parent experiences after a year\u2019s worth of planning to give a child away in marriage, or the feeling that a traveler has after making arrangements for a long trip of unknown, perhaps unending, duration.<\/p>\n Kiss the bride and off she goes; step on the gangway and wave goodbye. It was all done with earnest zeal and herculean effort, and it would all be done again\u2014because it was the right thing to do. It\u2019s just that it comes with a cost, a loss that\u2019s inextricably part of the gain. Is there a concept for victory-grief<\/em> in the Saxon tongue? Of success-loss<\/em>?<\/p>\n The occasion for my [insert German word here] is the sale of some country property that has been in my family for nearly as long as I have myself. It has brought me immense joy\u2014indeed, has formed me in more ways than I can fathom. The Southern \u201csense of place\u201d Eudora Welty spoke of never required explaining in my English classes, because the place to which I refer gave me all my senses to begin with.<\/p>\n But the time has come to let it go; common wisdom dictates; adulthood prescribes. And more effort than my own has gone into the process of fixing things up and making things sharp; there wasn\u2019t much work in that, as the place spoke for itself. It was its own recommendation. Anyone who had eyes would love it.<\/p>\n Still, while I was in the process of painting, washing, dusting, clipping\u2014all with a clear purpose and an inevitable goal, I had this deep-set feeling from time to time that said: Wait. Stop. Hold on here a minute. This is all a misunderstanding. This is all a mistake.<\/em><\/p>\n Nevertheless, discretion and level-headedness quickly returned. They had to. Onward. Onward.<\/p>\n And then, one day recently, what had been only theory became reality: a For Sale<\/em> sign and people \u201cjust looking\u201d became a Sold <\/em>sign and people really meaning to buy. An offer; an acceptance; and the deal was all done. I spanked my hands clean of the act and turned away.<\/p>\n But I have to say that right now, the sun is too bright. The spring air is too crisp and cold. It\u2019s as though I just stepped out of a plane, having landed in a country yet unknown.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll get along okay; adjustments are part of life, I know. But I expect to be perplexed and thrown in the days to come. For the world will have lost one of its directions for me, the one that meant the most.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard that you should not return to a place where you were happy. That makes sense. I can\u2019t exactly explain the experience such a thing would be, or why I can intuit the feelings that it would conjure. I just know. For that matter, you probably do too.<\/p>\n I bet there\u2019s a word in German.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image above is by Robert Moore, licensed by Creative Commons<\/p>\n A. G. Harmon<\/a> teaches Shakespeare, Law and Literature, Jurisprudence, and Writing at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His novel, A House All Stilled<\/a>, won the 2001 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel.<\/p>\n
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