The death of Miriam Pace in her home two weeks ago may have been caused by a very specific shortcoming – the dismantling of an external supporting structure, according to some (expert) sources. Whatever it was is now a legal and technical matter.
More broadly, the accident sensitised us – for a few days, unfortunately – to the effects of rampant construction. Much of what was written and said set up cowboy developers as a public enemy that has become too powerful, untouchable and on occasion lethal. Maybe, but I think there’s a more general argument to be made.
A few years ago, a philosopher coined the word ‘solastalgia’. A portmanteau of ‘solace’ and ‘nostalgia’, it refers to the feelings of pain and distress caused by the loss or deterioration of a place that used to bring us solace. The word was first used to discuss the effects of environmental damage caused by coal mining.
It is not hard to see why it has since percolated into fairly common use. From the devastation caused by wildfires to a rapidly growing list of vanishing animal and plant species, ours is a time of eco grief. The coinage could not have been better timed: solastalgia is one of those words that package the zeitgeist to perfection. It turns out that homesickness is not reserved for those who live away from home; rather, it is quite possible to be at home and yet feel sick, so to speak, about home.
So far, the cases of local use number a loose handful. Recently, for example, two Maltese geographers used the word to talk about the emotional reaction that followed the collapse of the Dwejra Azure Window three years ago.
To which I would add two things: first, that the word resonates with the Maltese context and may well prove contagious; and, second, that local conditions call for a further coinage.
My first experiences of solastalgia came when I was in my 20s. There was a spot in the upper part of Wied l-Isperanza (of all names) that was a maze of bramble. In late summer, migrating birds would congregate in their numbers to fatten up on the abundant blackberries.
The thought that this untended corner served to fuel their long-haul flights was, I suppose, my solace. Until, one day, a flash flood swept it all away. If birds feel loss, and I believe they do, it was a case of double solastalgia.
The second time, too, involved a valley. The bottom part of Għajn Żejtuna was the bit the Santa Marija Estate had forgotten. There was a year-round spring, and freshwater crabs and wild rabbits and weasels and kingfishers. Until, one morning, I went there and found a wasteland inhabited by two bulldozers. I haven’t been since: to court pain is both perverse and unwise.
On top of the pain and grief caused by loss past, people begin to feel pain and grief for loss yet to come
And so the solastalgic moments multiplied. What we are experiencing in Malta is not simply growth or construction or development. (All three are summed up in the generic ‘l-iżvilupp’). Rather, it is a radical and rapid remaking of the habitat, literally from the ground up. It’s the dismantling of everywhere we know, of all the places rural or urban that give us solace.
I know, because my self-quarantine is incomplete, that I am not alone in my feelings. Every day I talk to people who tell me of places, or what’s left of them, they can no longer bear to visit. Every time I meet a local on the Buġibba-Qawra seafront, they talk about what used to be. To call it nostalgia is to miss the point.
Which brings me to the coinage. When the pace of change is very rapid, and when nowhere is numinous enough to be left alone, a strange thing happens. On top of the pain and grief caused by loss past, people begin to feel pain and grief for loss yet to come. What we would normally call pessimism becomes a realistic assessment of the future, based on the very real evidence at hand.
I was talking to a student the other day about a sliver of carob green left on the university campus. She told me she loves to spend time there reading and smoking. She also told me about the sadness that overcomes her, knowing that each time she goes there may be the last.
She’s 20, and human finitude is not remotely on her mind. The death of place and of the solace of place, however, is.
Let’s call it prosolastalgia, this collective haunting by the ghost of loss yet to come. Unlike its shorter cousin, it leaves little room for redemption or optimism. Not all loved places are actually destroyed, but all can be. The thing with spirits is that nowhere is safe, no matter how tightly shut the doors.
The world caving in on you is a metaphor for a certain kind of unhappiness. In Miriam Pace’s case it was a metaphor made flesh. That things aren’t always so literal isn’t necessarily of great consolation to the rest of us.