Hello Gauchos!

At long last, we have reached our final destination. Graduation is in a few days, summer is about to commence and all of you find yourselves at the very end of this school year’s string of editorials. And while I’m sure some of you are probably absolutely ecstatic to hear an end to my incessant soapbox rambling, I hope I have been of use to you all throughout the year. I hope I have provoked some new idea or thought within you that has impacted you for the better.

Now, given that this is indeed the very last editorial I will be writing at Casa, I have decided to share some final thoughts and recollections from my experience through the years.

More specifically, I want to share a series of concepts and ideas that I have discovered and have been contemplating for some time now.

For seniors who are reading this right now (myself included), we are on the very cusp of adulthood. Graduation is right around the corner and as soon as those green caps make their way skywards on the field, we will have officially done it. No more work, no more red tape, no more waiting. We will have made it to adulthood.

Now, when that happens, there will of course be a great deal of celebration and happiness and giddy delightfulness that emanates throughout the entire town in a thundering, cacophonous roar. The future will await us and it will appear as bright as the sun.

But alongside that tremendous joy, there will be a certain pedigree of melancholic nostalgia as well. The type by which one looks back upon their lives, considers their childhood for a while and makes comparisons to what it felt like being a kid just a few years ago.

So, we will feel that sense of nostalgia of our past, our personal reflection of the present and our hopeful vision for ourselves in the future. All of these points of time mesh together into one singular complex emotion.

Boom. Right there. In that exact instantaneous moment of time where one feels that strange sense of nostalgia, satisfaction, certainty and brilliance, everything feels complete.

There is actually a name for this emotion: hiraeth. It’s a Welsh word that doesn’t translate into English very well, but it essentially describes a feeling of longing, nostalgia and sometimes melancholic memory that can resonate within a certain person when viewing certain images, hearing certain kinds of music or being poised in certain situations.

You may know absolutely nothing about the nature of the specific situation, music, images or media before you. You likely have not a clue as to the where, when, who, why and how. But somehow, by some miracle, experiencing it just feels right. It feels proper. It feels correct. It feels good. And that is the crux of this concept of hiraeth: feeling a sense of completion towards something that may not even be complete.

Now, from what I have seen, heard and felt, there are few different “flavors” of hiraeth that depend upon the specifics of such a “complete” situation.

For example, there’s what I call conclusionary hiraeth, which feels like the moment the end credits start rolling to a movie with a really good ending. A great instance of this would be listening to the song “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest at sunset just after the graduation ceremony. You would not only feel like you’re having a “main character moment”, but you’d feel that sense of accomplishment, nostalgia and therefore hiraeth right alongside it.

Another version of hiraeth is inspirational. This incorporates one’s “future vision” such that they feel such great pride in their accomplishments that they feel deeply inspired to continue thriving and moving forward in the future. “In This Shirt” by The Irrepressibles is another great tune that fits rather well with this thematic statement, offering a sense of inspiration and nostalgia that rocks one to their very core.

These are just a few of these “flavors”. Everyone experiences emotions a little differently and interprets the world differently, so there are thousands upon thousands of different variations that could be felt, some common, some more rare in nature.

During a recent camping trip, my dad had his own version of this emotional response. I was just playing some random songs on my phone and at one point, the song “Dog Days are Over” by Florence & The Machine came on. He immediately recognized it.

He told me of the time that he quit his job at Wells Fargo after finding a much better one working for an insurance company, and how this was the song that played during the car ride home.

He hadn’t had a very good experience near the end of his time at Wells Fargo, so the part where the song rang out with “…and the dog days are over,” really rang true with him. It became one of his most favorite songs that day.

Since then, he hadn’t heard that song in quite a while, and I only learned of his connection to it once I played it for him. 

Certain music, images and media can have situations and events directly tied to them that characterizes that medium to such an extent that it “burns” an emotion into that medium. Thus, whenever someone views or hears or interacts with that medium, a similar, perhaps more muted response is triggered as if that person is experiencing that moment all over again.

In a way, it’s similar to PTSD in that you relive those emotions, but not so much that the emotions are completely negative and instead shed only positive light upon the person experiencing it.

If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns about a particular article, or you have a suggestion for one, please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment, write us a letter, or send us an email. This is Owen Davis, Casa Revista Editor-in-Chief, signing off.

Seize the Day,

Owen Davis

Editor-in-Chief, 2022-2023