BBD
Jul 13, 2025
Three summers ago, my friend Rachel forever upleveled my life by introducing me to the term belly button hour.
It’s that strange homesick feeling that hits when your fingers brush the center of your navel, where once there were nerve endings, a cord, a lifeline. A place that used to feed you. That used to connect you.
You’re not supposed to remember it, but somehow you do.
Lately we’ve been calling them belly button days too. Days where the air feels a little heavier, where the weather is gray and unpredictable, where your heart has a soft throb of longing running through it. Not panic. Not despair. Just an ache that’s hard to name.
There’s a Welsh word for it:
Hiraeth /ˈhirˌīTH/
noun
- 1.(especially in the context of Wales or Welsh culture) deep longing for something, especially one's home.
It's a longing, but not the kind you can solve. It’s a yearning for home, but not necessarily a home you can return to. Sometimes it’s a place. Sometimes it’s a feeling. Sometimes it’s a self you used to be. Or maybe never were, but rather, imagined.
Today is a belly button day.
It’s rainy and weird and I’m worried about Emerge being perfect, even though I know perfection’s never the point. I’m watching the sky shift every few minutes and wondering if the sun will come out in time for the pool. Wondering if the people coming will feel held, changed, remembered.
And as my mind feels all over the place, Deeds is climbing into my lap. Barefoot and sticky and utterly himself. His toes are in my face and all I can do is sigh.
He asks, “Mommy, are you a person?”
And I reply, “Yes. Yes I am. Thanks for noticing.”
Because I am. Still. Always. A person.
I’ve built a life I love. And still, there are days like this. Where something unnamed tugs at the edges of joy. Where I ache for more, not because what I have isn’t enough, but because I remember something deeper. A place I can’t quite describe, but the core of my being seems to remember.
There was a time I would run from this feeling I couldn't quite place. Distract myself. Work harder. Get busy. But now I know better.
Now I know these days have a name.
Belly Button Days.
Hiraeth.
And despite all the pre-workshop jitters, I know that Emerge is going to be something beyond words.
It's where we gather to feel.
To hold space for the unnamed ache.
To remember what our bodies have carried.
To submerge, to resurface, and to come back into ourselves a little more whole.
If you’re feeling the longing,
you’re not alone.
Fally
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