As per the disclaimers seen so far in this series, if this post doesn't already make sense to you, follow these links and get caught up:
The Lost In Translation bracket, 2020 edition
- 9/20 - Intro and 1st Round
- 9/25 - Quarterfinals, part one
- 9/29 - Quarterfinals, part two
- 10/9 - Semifinals
Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – noun, the act of repeatedly going outside to keep checking if someone (anyone) is coming.
-vs-
Hiraeth (Welsh) – noun, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.
I went back and did a little research on the 2016 edition of the bracket for some added context about this matchup. In some ways, it's a little lopsided - iktsuarpok was the winner, while hiraeth was knocked out in the first round (final sixteen). I suppose in one way it's been a long four years, reflected in a way by the ascent of hiraeth into this final round; I suspect in the time of COVID, many readers can relate to the feeling of a vague homesickness for the past. But the fact of a repeat appearance from iktsuarpok confirms the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same; the word itself speaks to the sensation.
What I wrote four years ago about hiraeth holds up quite well - ultimately, the homes we miss distract us from the homes we must keep within, simply because life doesn't let us keep any other home. Home is indeed, as I referenced back then, where the hurt is, but that's partly because clutching for the material meaning of home, the time and the place of it, prevents us from living with and through our hurt in any other way, in any other place. Hiraeth is in some ways the breaking point, when a new dawn will shine a light on the rubble for exactly what it is, and give you the clarity of vision for building anew.
I felt a similar way when I looked back on iktsuarpok - I said quite a bit about it in 2016, and much of it holds up. In the first round, I wrote about the word as resilience against modernity, referencing as it does the basic human contradiction of constantly seeking ways to pass the time despite our ongoing insistence that we never have enough time. Or perhaps, as I noted in the quarterfinal, it simply restates the futility of having to wait for someone, for anyone, to bring significance into a lifetime stuck in the mud of the mundane - and of waiting while knowing that nobody might come at all. The thoughts I expressed in the semifinal were perhaps the most significant at the time, where I described the process of grief as like a period of waiting, in a land where no one will find you, until you see the return of yourself; I've only grown more appreciative of this perspective in the ensuing years.
The 2016 tournament ended on a somewhat surprising note, as I had expected komorebi to take the top prize. I remember how as I wrote I slowly worked my way to a different conclusion, the crux of it an understanding that despite its foreign origin komorebi was hardly a word beyond the American grasp, and easily translated with a certain kind of non-linguistic effort. Iktsuarpok works on a different level for it refers to something that doesn't exist in our culture, or at least has no value; we often talk in our hospice volunteer team about the counter-cultural aspect of hospice, as if participating in the institution is a certain understated form of protest, where we demonstrate against a society that expresses its fear of death through violence against suffering, defeated bodies. In hospice, people wait. They wait for their friends, they wait for their families, they wait for their God - they wait for anyone, whoever is coming, if anyone; we wait with them, and take on the role of visitor, so that the resident feels less like a visitor in their own home, and may find comfort in the sense of belonging.
In some ways, when I look at these two words I see the bones of a very similar idea - each speaks to a certain reality of transition and creates the language we need to communicate the heart and heartbreak of change. But hiraeth, though a powerful idea, places us squarely in the physical world, and moves us within its confines; iktsuarpok is an expansion, in that the physical world is reframed as the transition. I feel I've had my taste of each perspective, and I have a strong sense of which leads us to a path where we can seek belonging, and discover home, here on this earth.
Silver medal
2) Hiraeth (Welsh) – noun, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.
Gold medal
1) Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – noun, the act of repeatedly going outside to keep checking if someone (anyone) is coming.
