Home sweet heimat
A day ago , by Richard Lutz
from Richard Lutz
Every year, in her latter days, Jan Moore packed her bags, boarded a plane in Brisbane and flew 10,000 miles to a Scottish village. There she settled into her one bedroom cottage, not 100 metres from the house where she was born almost a century ago.
She was home.
Once settled in, she’d visit neighbours, a small ring of family, a dwindling circle of friends. And, as she aged and her mobility decreased, she’d gladly hold court as others would drop in to chat, help with groceries, talk about the weather, discuss the world’s ailments and beauty, how the garden hedge was growing, how the western sun bounced off the harbour in her Ayrshire village of Maidens.
Jan died in June, just short of her 97th birthday. She wasn’t old. She was still young; she still thought young. Her son interred her ashes, as promised, among the hills, nestled near an old church.
In the end, although she raised a family in Australia and travelled widely all her life, this rolling patch of green earth was part of her. ‘It’s where I belong.’ she’d tell one and all in a soft Scots accent she never lost.
She was a lucky woman in many ways, because in many important ways Jan was blessed with the gift of knowing where her home was. David Byrne, the singer, summed it up. He wrote:
“I’m looking for a home, where the wheels are turning….Home, why I keep returning.”
And return, Jan did.
(In fact, Byrne sang seven songs about Going Home in a recent concert movie. The call homewards, it seems, was rattling inside his talking head.)
The German language has a word for this yearning. It’s heimat. It means more than an urge, actually. Heimat is a cultural pull, a need to be rooted somewhere, a force that draws you back.
So powerful is the word that many decades ago German tv produced a magnificent series-invariably called ‘Heimat’- that reflected how generations of a single 20thc rural family survived the ructions, horrors, disasters and resurrection of that country in a remote farming. community.
It was engrossing. The characters were all deeply affected by this sense of belonging to a specific place, especially those that left but had to return. For some it was an annual visit. For others, it was decades before they were drawn back to a township that never left them. They had to come home.
Just as Jan did. She had a visceral need to return. And she did. Year after year. Decade after decade. And since she now lies somewhere that is forever Scotland, forever Ayrshire, forever among the hills and curving shore, she and the memory of her is suffused with a fullness of heimat.
Jan Moore, you see, was a fortunate woman. She knew where she belonged.
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Mike Kretzmer
The last line, so true: She knew where she belonged.
Tim Downie
A lucky woman! Due to my upbringing I’ve never really felt that there is anywhere I can truly call “home” although the northeast of Scotland comes closest.
Looking at the sun sparkling off waves on the North Sea makes my heart ache so I think that must be home for me.
Martin McCrindle
Do we belong to a place?
Tina Mara
Nice
Tony Fitzpatrick
I have a sense of home… but it’s not where I was born or spent those formative years….it’s more where I ‘ended up’…but it feels like my home if that makes sense…
William Kerr
Yup, I can relate to that, Richard!
Liz Lockhart
That is such a lovely tribute to Jan. She was wonderful and an inspiration to all. I was sorry to hear she had died although as you said a young 97 year old.
Also I’ve just checked out how to rewatch Heimat.
Alan Holland
Do tell!
CM/ Glasgow
Do wanderers have any home other than the inside of their heads? I’m a partial wanderer.
Martin Mckerrell
I’ve lived and worked on the west coast of Scotland all my life. The family ties and that everchanging view of Arran would be the most difficult to leave. Tender words..,
Alan Holland
The Germans are good at coming up with words which define a feeling. Mind you they’re often 94 syllables long.
I recently had a conversation over a pint in The Old Mo with assorted friends here in Birmingham, none of whom were natives of the city.
Without exception they clung to their roots elsewhere and many felt their pull more strongly as the years, jobs and family responsibilities have passed. Heimat, I like it.
Caroline Campbell
Wow
Bella Houston
We remember the Heimat series well.
A lot of truth in what you say.
Jane Terry
Nice piece about Jan. I like the old saying that “the most important things you can give to your children are roots and wings”. Guess Jan definitely got both…
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