Querencia

In the pall of the pandemic we shelter at home, though our home is now not the welcoming place of bygone days. It is now a refuge; haven; bastion; redoubt; retreat; sanctuary; asylum … home is an oasis in this troubling time. There is an apt Spanish word, querencia, the place where we feel secure and out of harm’s way. In Hemingway’s writing,* the querencia is the one place in the bullfight ring where the bull is impervious to the toreador. Yet querencia holds metaphysical connotations: In our querencia, we become centered, our identity coalesces and we know who we are.

[*Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon]