Tag: words

merrenness – n. the lulling isolation of driving late at night – floating through the void in an otherworldly hum, trailing red jewels in the darkness, your high beams seeming back and forth like a lighthouse.

This is certainly something I feel often. I don’t go out late a lot, but there are times I’m coming home and I feel merrenness. Not so much the side to side of high beams, but the up and down on the hilly country roads in Colorado. A bit of side to side as I get near the house.

This is especially something I feel in the Tesla, where there can be a hum and not much else. Watching the world go by, sometimes with music as a background, sometimes silence, reminds me of the wider world around me, both there and muted by the darkness.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

mahpiohanzia – n. the frustration of being unable to fly, unable to stretch out your arms and vault into the air, having finally shrugged off the burden of your own weight, which you’ve been carrying your entire life without a second thought.

Isn’t everyone other than Michael Jordan and a few others feeling this? I know the kids I coach in volleyball dream of flying, not for long, but always more than they can do.

I’ve felt this as well when I was in my 20s and trying to dunk a basketball. I did it a couple times, but then I struggled as I got even slightly older (and heavier). AS I moved to volleyball, I used to wish this. Now I worry about landing on these 50+ year old knees, so I don’t think about mahpiohanzia.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

rückkehrunruhe – n. the feeling of returning from an immersive trip only to notice if fading rapidly from your awareness, as if your brain had automatically assumed it was all just a dream and already went to work scrubbing it from your memory.

I feel like rückkehrunruhe happens at the end of quite a few trips. Certainly all the volleyball ones where I’m coaching. Such an intense emotional experience competing with a team, but not doing much more than providing light guidance. I don’t get on the court and can do little to affect the outcome in the moment.

However, I also felt this recently after coming back from That! Conference in Wisconsin. 3+ days in a fun, scout-camp-meets-tech-conference atmosphere and back to work. I think having a 30 hours turnaround at home before reading to the wedding also made the transition back from the work event to life full of rückkehrunruhe.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

aubadoir – n. the outworldly atmosphere just before 5 am, when the bleary melodrama of an extremely late night becomes awkwardly conflated with the industrious flourescence of a very early morning.

I haven’t seem 5am from the previous day side in a long time. I just don’t go out much, and almost never past midnight. However, I did have a late night recently after vacation. I flew home on a Sunday night, with a delayed flight. This has become all too common, but in this case it was tough.

I landed around 1230am. I got bags and drove home, getting into bed between 130a and 200a. I had a 9am flight, so I was up at 6am to pull out some laundry from my bag, throw in a few new clothes, and then head back to the airport.

Getting home and remembering that I had to be up in a few hours certainly had me feeling some audadoir.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows