Nostalgia

Posted on by gr8ful_collette
Photo by Ben Weber on Unsplash

Nostalgia: a sentimental or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy associations.

Even before the world slipped into unhappy times, I’ve been thinking about the concept of nostalgia. The ability to transport ourselves to a happier place and time through memory fascinates me. It serves no purpose, from a survival standpoint. It is one of those uniquely human (as far as I know) traits that functions only to resurrect sensory experiences, often leaving behind a vague or regretful longing.

I’ve been wading into the waters of nostalgia lately, partly because the place I’m living is lonely and loudly incomplete. Who knew that we could feel nostalgic for a life so recently lived?

But I’ve also been frequenting my past and travelling way back, searching for material for a story collection I have in mind.

Personally, I love it when my memories invoke feelings of nostalgia because it’s usually such a rich sensory experience, filled with not only the “what” but also the “how.” How it felt, looked, sounded, smelled and tasted. Sometimes, it’s the senses themselves that trigger nostalgia: the smell of Ponds Cold Cream, the prick of a cactus spine, the taste of lemon bars, the sight of canaries in flight, the sound of a Major League Baseball game broadcast on AM radio.

These are the scenes I want to revisit and write about…but then I wonder if nostalgia is only pleasurable to the one recalling it. If the magic of the memory is lost in the retelling.

For instance, I can take you, dear reader, on to trip to visit my grandparents when I was nine years old. How I spent the morning in my grandfather’s greenhouses, helping him graft cactus in the filtered light. How my eyes traveled across the square containers aligned in uniform rows and met the variety of textures: smooth and fleshy, fuzzy, spiny, bumpy, round, thin and squat, soft and sharp, all shades of green and grays. I marveled at how something so spiny and treacherous could also be adorned in the majesty of a vibrant magenta flower, like it was teaching us that pain can be beautiful.

I can tell you about the canary aviary I got to walk through, helping my grandfather feed the birds pieces of dried toast and iceberg lettuce. How we were allowed to peek quietly at the nests that held miniature oval eggs or fuzzy-headed babies with gaping beaks and eyes squeezed shut. So ugly they were cute, so vulnerable they were strong. As I left, I retrieved a few treasures from the ground; smooth, tiny wing feathers the color of orange sherbet.

Then, when we went inside for lunch: Campbell’s tomato soup accompanied by melty sharp-cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches, followed by grandma’s lemon bars that tasted like sunshine.

In the afternoon, while my grandfather napped, my grandma showed me how to knit. I remember the sound of the steady clicking of the knitting needles accompanied by the automatic movement of my grandmother’s hands as she made the soft yarn duck and dive around the pastel colored metal sticks.

Later, how I helped her make a dinner of beef stew and dumplings. How the windows fogged with steam as we listened to the soothing lull of the San Francisco Giants’ announcers on AM radio describing another baseball game, one of hundreds that she had heard over her lifetime.

The after-dinner entertainment included games shows with grandma (and more knitting), watching “Wheel of Fortune” and “Family Feud”. And then, reclining with grandpa on his bed as we leafed through his Time-Life series of nature books and he described the creatures and marvels of the natural world.

Then at last bedtime, where I got to sleep with grandma in her big bed with the bisque-colored damask comforter. The smell of grandma’s Ponds Cold Cream filling my nose and my ears filled with the hauntingly beautiful notes of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”…

I could tell you all of this, dear reader, but reading it inevitably dilutes the magic I feel when I recall it first-hand.

But the beautiful thing is that we all have our own places in time we can return to…sensory experiences we can invoke and feel the sentimental homesickness of time gone by. And if it’s in our memory, it is part of us; retrievable at will. We didn’t know it when we were making these memories, that they would be a source of comfort in some future time.

But that is part of the beauty and wonder of life. That we are blessed with the ability to savor moments on a sensory level and call them back to mind to relive and enjoy again when the happy moments are harder to come by.

What memories invoke a sense of nostalgia for you? I’d love to read about them in the comments.

Happy remembering.

16 thoughts on “Nostalgia”

  1. Janet says:

    What beautiful memories Collette! It’s funny that you mention grandma and grandpa because that definitely invokes memories. Very OLD memories, wow. My grandparents lived farther away from the city and we would drive there every single Sunday night, rain or shine. In the car, on the way out there, I would lean my head back and look up at the sky from the back window. The further out we got, the darker the sky grew… and there were stars upon stars.

    My grandpa collected and polished rocks and I remember searching through shelves and boxes (under some kind of carport structure) to find the polished rocks and I’d be so excited when he’d let me take some home. We would also sit on the steps out back and make ice cream in an wooden bucket. I haven’t thought about those years in decades.

    Reply
    • gr8ful_collette says:

      Treasures from the grandparents’ place. The best. Yes I remember looking at stars from the car on the rides home from my grandparents too. They seemed so bright. Maybe because there was less development and traffic back then… Thank you for sharing! 🥰

      Reply
  2. Jim Simmonds says:

    Lovely memories Collette. Ah my memories. My first kiss at primary school after playing kiss chase for the first time . 9 years old but boy did that start something! X

    Reply
  3. clairei47 says:

    I remember lying on my bed as a child, reading, with our gorgeous Irish setter lying on top of my legs so I couldn’t get out and leave him. He was soft and cuddly and the hair on his long ears was like feather to touch. I used to kiss him and hug him all the time. That’s taken me right back! Thanks 😊 xxx

    Reply
    • gr8ful_collette says:

      Thank you, Dwight. I just read Smith Drive. What a unique and special childhood you got to experience! I too wish we could go back sometimes. Thank you for sharing your memories with us! 💕🥰

      Reply
  5. drgettingsober says:

    Beautifully evocative Collette – my memories are more fragmented – my granny picking vegetables for lunch, wringing out the washing with a mangle and forever cooking huge meals for the huge family and farm workers and baking cakes – the smells in that house were amazing!

    Reply
  6. msnewleaf says:

    For me, it’s walking through the silent streets in my mom’s small town at night with tons of snow on the ground, stars in the sky, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors on the car stereo on the drive home.

    Reply

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