Page 17 - FMH7

Ghorbat
We have this word in Farsi. I think it’s rooted in Arabic.
It’s also rooted in exile and loss. Lost lands and lost peoples.
It’s untranslatable - in English there’s silence.
Its absence from English is noisy.
It’s a song. It’s a note in a melody - the one that dips and takes your heart
with it.
It’s the song all immigrants sing. Our unspoken bond.
It’s being a stranger. It’s being estranged.
It’s memories, you can almost taste them (or imagine you did in the stories
your mother told).
It’s memories, but nostalgia is just one bar of this song.
It’s far from home. It’s yearning.
It’s comprised of connotations - Far away. Missing. Suffering. Pain.
It’s a pain.
It’s absence from English has so much to say.
- Parastou