Hegen jumped out at me from a really aggressively bad text I was proofreading. That happens when you play freelancer roulette. I’ve since learned to beware the job posters who don’t specify the subject of the job at hand; if the subject can’t be used to sell a job, it’ll probably be rife enough to lobotomize. Seriously. This was hazardous material.
I think hegen was used in the context of an idiom such as “harboring” either “doubt” or “ill will,” although hegen also means “to tend to” or “to cherish.” It comes from Hag (“hedge”), an 8th century word still in circulation in Switzerland and southern Germany, it seems, and the heart-rending meaning of fencing something in you care about.
There is still the phrase hegen und pflegen, common since the 1600’s, which I might have come closest to with “to hold near and dear.” There’s a distinction between hegen (“to tend to”) and pflegen (“to care for”) that has to do with the amount of soul being put in. Hegen/“tending” something or someone has much more the sense of “nurturing.”
At first, I couldn’t remember where I was the first time I saw a chain-link fence decorated with hand-written combination locks symbolizing devotion. It was cold, it was overlooking water, it was… Portsmouth, New Hampshire, maybe five years ago. To me, that gesture carries the soulfulness of fencing in, of holding near and dear, in a powerfully condensed, palpably everlasting form. I am now on the lookout for a fence and a padlock, some gritty little landmark to visit in 30 years, once I’ve learned not to bother with comatose words. Give me a minute.
