Topic: Nostalgia
The holidays are coming and it is putting me into a period of nostalgia for times past or perhaps never were but we wish they were. I have included some of my thoughts and others on the subject. But before you go on, if you are of a certain age you will remember these soda pops. My favorite was grapette which I am pretty certain is no more.
Memory is often less about
the truth than about what we
want it to be.
-David Halberstam, New York Times
Nostalgia: a longing for pleasures, experiences, or events belonging to the past. Oh those memories, they are brought on by an aroma, a song, a picture, and can send us back many, many years. The memories are not always pleasant. It may bring back a memory of a husband lost in the war or being hungry as the depression was ending. And as it is with nostalgia, it brings it back, fully staged and choreographed with the people and events of that time. Also, with the fullness of time, the rough edges, the not so nice things are sometimes minimized or forgotten. We are left only with a memory that can cause our eyes to glaze as a feeling of wellbeing comes over us. It brings that comfortable feeling of being again in familiar places with those people we loved.
____________________________________________________________________________
In the darkness of the night
light and shadow play
on the back of the front seat of the car
As we drive somewhere -
to some aunt-and-uncle dinner
or
back from some drive-down-to-the-coast day trip -
I lay on the back seat
of our '55 medium green and white two door Buick Special
and watch the sagging 'phone and electric wires shadow
play up and down,
and the light and dark
like a window shade opening and closing
as we travel between the telephone poles.
Oh, joyous memories, I am yours.
- David Komisar, 3/10/98
Posted by jim2jak
at 12:02 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, 10 November 2004 12:04 PM EST
