Long Days and Longing

The Question Left Open

"You never answered me in the spring," the innkeeper said, "about whether you miss your friend." It was early summer, and the evenings had grown so long that he had to wait until almost ten o'clock before it made any sense to light the lantern. The hay in the nearby fields was cut and drying, and the whole crossroads smelled of it.

The traveler said she had thought about the question on many roads since then. She had nearly been too proud to answer it. Many people, she said, believe that missing someone is a weakness, a sign that you cannot stand on your own feet. Travelers believe it more than most, since they are supposed to be free, and freedom seems to mean needing no one.

"But the proverbs do not agree," she went on. "They treat longing as part of love, and some of them treat it as the proof of love." In her notebook the sayings about absence filled more pages than almost any other feeling. People in every land, it seemed, had needed words for the ache of a long day spent far from someone dear. Nobody makes so many words for a weakness, she said. People make them for something that matters.

The innkeeper struck his match at last. The lantern flame rose pale against the late blue sky, hardly needed yet, but he said he lit it at the usual hour anyway, for anyone on the road who might be looking for it.

Fondness or Forgetting

The traveler began with two English sayings that seem to quarrel openly. The first is "Absence makes the heart grow fonder", which says that being apart makes love stronger. The second is "Out of sight, out of mind", which says that what we cannot see, we soon forget.

The innkeeper said that this time the proverbs really did contradict each other, and that she could not escape it with her talk of coats. The traveler laughed and said that both were true, but of different loves. A shallow attachment fades out of sight. A deep one grows fonder in absence. The two sayings together make a kind of test, she said. If you find that you miss someone more as the weeks pass, the first saying has described you, and your bond is the deep kind. If you find that you hardly think of them, the second saying has quietly told you something too.

Imagine that you have been traveling for three months, and a friend at home asks on a video call whether you still think about the person you were seeing before you left.

"More every week, which surprises me," you admit. "I thought I would forget all about it on the road."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," your friend says, smiling. "That tells you something, does it not?"

Far From the Eyes

The sayings on the side of forgetting are remarkably alike from one end of the map to the other. In French people say "Loin des yeux, loin du cœur", "far from the eyes, far from the heart". In Arabic it is "Al-ba'id 'an al-'ayn ba'id 'an al-qalb", "whoever is far from the eye is far from the heart". In Spanish it is "Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente", "eyes that do not see, a heart that does not feel". In Japanese there is "Saru mono wa hibi ni utoshi", "those who leave grow more distant day by day".

The traveler said that these are not cruel sayings. They are honest warnings. They remind those who leave, and those who stay, that distance does slowly loosen a bond unless someone tends it. They do not say that love must die. They say that love left alone grows faint, the way a lantern left untrimmed burns lower each night until someone comes to turn up the wick.

Imagine that you are about to start a year of work abroad, and on the last evening a friend gives you a stack of stamped envelopes addressed to herself.

"Loin des yeux, loin du cœur, unless you write," she says. "So one letter a month, and we will prove the saying wrong."

Three Autumns in a Day

On the other side stand the sayings of fonder hearts. The loveliest in her notebook was Chinese and very old, from a collection of songs sung long before anyone wrote down their authors: "Yī rì bú jiàn, rú gé sān qiū", "one day without seeing you is like three autumns". People still use it today, sometimes half joking, to tell someone that they have been missed.

From German she read "Alte Liebe rostet nicht", "old love does not rust". It means that a deep affection survives years of distance and silence, and that when two people meet again the old feeling is still there, bright under the dust. People say it with a knowing smile when former sweethearts meet at a wedding, but also about a person who returns after many years to an old hobby, an old song or an old town and finds that their heart leaps exactly as it used to. The saying treats longing as a kind of keeping. What you miss, you have not lost, because some part of you is still holding on to it.

The innkeeper said that he liked the Chinese saying best because it used the seasons. He had measured his own life by them at the crossroads, and he admitted that a day without a letter from his sister in the north sometimes did feel like three autumns.

Imagine that you have finally met a dear friend at a railway station after a long separation. She hugs you so hard that your backpack slips off one shoulder.

"Yī rì bú jiàn, rú gé sān qiū," she says, laughing, "so by my count we have been apart for about three thousand autumns."

A Word Called Saudade

While the hay smell drifted over from the fields, the traveler told the innkeeper about a word rather than a saying. In Portuguese there is the word "saudade", which people often say has no exact match in other languages. It names a longing for someone or something that is absent, perhaps lost for good, and it mixes sadness with a warm gratitude for having known them at all.

Portuguese speakers say that they feel saudade for a person, a place, a season of youth, or even a dish their grandmother made. They do not treat it as weakness. Many songs are built on it, and it is often spoken of with a kind of pride, as proof that the heart has loved well. She said that in Welsh there is a word with a similar color, "hiraeth", a longing for a home or a place that may never come back. Both words, she said, are lanterns lit in the window for someone who is not yet home.

The innkeeper said that he would remember the word saudade on the evenings when the road stayed empty until dark.

The Cough That Shows

Some sayings point out that longing and love are almost impossible to hide. In Swahili people say "Mapenzi ni kikohozi, hayafichiki", "love is a cough, it cannot be hidden". In Latin there is a saying with the very same picture: "Amor tussisque non celantur", "love and a cough cannot be concealed".

The traveler was delighted every time she found such a pair. Two languages, far apart in time and place, had both noticed that love escapes us like a cough in a quiet room, however hard we try to stay calm. It shows in the eyes, in the voice and in how often a certain name slips into the conversation. The innkeeper said that the lantern was the same. You could shield the flame with your hand, but the light still showed between your fingers.

Imagine that you are sharing a guesthouse kitchen with a fellow traveler, and for the third time today you mention someone you met on the ferry last week.

"Mapenzi ni kikohozi, hayafichiki," your companion says with a grin. "You can stop pretending that you are only talking about the weather on that ferry."

Reasons the Heart Ignores

Longing does not listen to good advice, and two sayings admit it frankly. In Japanese people say "Koi wa shian no hoka", "love lies outside all reasoning". In Italian they say "Al cuor non si comanda", "the heart cannot be commanded". The Japanese phrase is often said with a sigh by friends watching someone fall for a person who lives at the other end of the country, and the Italian one by parents who have given up arguing and decided simply to set another place at the table.

Both sayings are kind to those who long for someone. They do not tell them to stop being foolish. They say that the heart has its own law, and that missing someone is not a choice we failed to make wisely but something that simply happens to us. The innkeeper said that he found this a great comfort. He had always felt a little foolish for watching the road at dusk for a guest who had promised to come back.

Imagine that you are in a hostel common room, explaining to a new friend why you are taking a twelve-hour bus ride just to spend one day with someone.

"I know it does not make any sense at all," you say, "but I cannot stop thinking about it."

"Al cuor non si comanda," she answers, and helps you find the bus timetable.

Drums Heard From Afar

The Hindi saying "Door ke dhol suhavane" means "drums sound pleasant from far away". It warns that what is distant often seems more beautiful than it is, because we hear only the music and not the noise. People use it for faraway jobs, faraway cities and sometimes faraway loves.

The traveler said that every traveler should know this saying, because longing can play tricks. A place you left may grow lovelier in memory than it ever was, and a road you have not yet taken may sound like a festival only because you are not standing beside the drum. The saying does not mock longing. It asks us to listen carefully and to love what is real, not only its distant echo. She said that she had once longed for a valley for years and found, when she finally went back, that it was smaller, colder and more ordinary than she remembered. The friend she had made there, however, was every bit as good as she remembered.

Imagine that you are lying awake in a hot hostel dormitory, dreaming aloud about leaving everything to live on a faraway island you saw in a photograph.

"Door ke dhol suhavane," says the girl in the next bunk sleepily. "Go and visit first, and then decide whether the drums are as sweet up close."

The Distant Stick

Longing from afar is not enough on its own, a Swahili saying reminds us: "Fimbo ya mbali haiui nyoka", "a stick far away does not kill the snake". Help that is far off is of no use in a sudden need. For people who love someone far away, the traveler said, the saying is a gentle push. Do not only miss them; find ways to be present, with a call, a letter, or a parcel sent in time.

From German she added a homely saying, "Liebe geht durch den Magen", "love goes through the stomach". People usually say it about cooking for someone you love. She used it more widely, for the jar of jam you send across the sea or the packet of your friend's favorite tea that you carry home in your luggage. Longing that turns into a small gift, she said, is longing that has found something useful to do.

Imagine that you are working abroad, and your mother at home has fallen ill and is being cared for by a neighbor. You feel useless so far away.

"Fimbo ya mbali haiui nyoka," your colleague says kindly, "so let us find you a ticket home for the weekend, and I will cover your shift."

Or imagine that you are packing to visit an old friend abroad and wondering whether a jar of your mother's pickled peppers is worth the weight in your bag. "Liebe geht durch den Magen," your mother says firmly, wrapping the jar in a scarf, "and she has missed these peppers for five years, so take two jars."

Letters at Long Dusk

Here is a small thing to try in early summer, when the days are longest. On one of those late, bright evenings, write three lines to someone you miss. Write where you are, what the light looks like, and one saying about longing from the place you are visiting. Post it from the next town you pass through, so that the letter carries the name of a place your reader has never seen. The person far away will hold a little of your long evening in their hands.

The innkeeper said that he had not written to his sister for a year, and he would write to her that very night, under the lantern, while the sky was still light.

Clouds Over the Hills

The last saying the traveler read was a plain English one: "Love will find a way". It says that people who truly care for each other will find some road across any distance, however long, and the traveler said she believed it because she had seen it happen on so many crossroads.

Imagine that you are standing in a post office in a mountain town, trying to send a birthday parcel across two oceans, and the clerk warns you that it may take six weeks to arrive.

"Six weeks, and the birthday is in ten days," you say, staring at the little box of sweets in your hands.

"Love will find a way," the clerk says, and she slides a postcard across the counter. "Send this today with the sweets, and the card will arrive first and tell your friend that the rest is coming."

"So you do miss her," the innkeeper said at last, and the traveler laughed and said that of course she did, every day the road was long.

Then she stopped laughing and pointed past the lantern toward the western hills. The long light had suddenly dimmed there, and dark clouds were piling up above the ridge, heavy and fast and edged with copper.

"There is a storm gathering over the hills," she said quietly, "and I think it will reach us before the lantern has burned an hour."