Nostalgia: words on going back (916 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.85 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (View user info) at 2004-08-01 13:18:33 EDT
Someone may have once said, or at least should have said, that the two strongest forces in the universe are death and nostalgia. Both are undeniable and omnipresent.
What exactly is, and has always been, the great attraction in going back to the way things were? Why is the past always conveniently edited and irresistibly alluring?
The stories are eternal: always the same at the core, though the variations themselves are endless and innumerable.
*
"Back in the day", Alex started. Back in the day, of course. It meant less every time one of them said it. They were drawing on recollections of days not too far gone.
The feelings come rushing home vivid at first. Almost - almost, but not quite - like they are there again.
That time when almost-blind Auntie Sara ran over her cat and the boys brought her a new one unnecessarily and quite cleverly disguised as the same cat. That time when all of them were together, before Ricky got caught up with the fast crowd. Before Angela started selling her body on the streets because her family needed the money.
She was never quite the same afterwards, no matter how much they pretended.
How absurd it was, really. Alex was young, not even yet 19, and his companions were barely older. This is when you are supposed to forge forward, make your life, not look back on your life like it's something sweet carved into the pavement. Something solidified, ancient, and unalterable.
Alex stopped himself. He never finished the sentence.
*
The reality of "them" was that there was no them. It was her. He was never enough, and she told him so in her most honest moments. She drifted frequently and far, only to come back to him unsatisfied. They brawled weekly, he restrained himself but she was unbearable when she turned on the fiery rage.
But the memory - oh god does he want to go back. Some say the passage of time fades away the more bitter aspects, but he remembers them. They are small, unimportant, and polished over though. Larger than life, however, is the way she smiled when she was sorry. The first night they met and she tripped and he caught her. He was good enough then. She told him, as someone inevitably does in every relationship, never to leave her. But it didn't sound trite, overused. It sounded new and meaningful and unique.
And to him, that's what the past was. That's why he spends a few minutes out of every hour, a few hours out of every day, wishing he could go back.
*
The mother sat there, looking at the picture of her daughter.
Oddly enough, though she never thought of it this way, she would far rather look at the pictures than go see the real girl - woman now.
It had been that way for quite a long time, almost since before she could remember.
Pinocchio himself may have wanted to be a real boy. In the actual story, not the sickly sweet Disney version, he becomes the death of his creator. Geppetto goes to prison, and Pinocchio smashes "Jimminy Cricket" in one of the early chapters. Maybe it would have been better for his father if the puppet had never become flesh and blood.
Sometimes the things we make destroy us.
In these cases though, we still look back fondly. Like the mother did, as the day went on and she realized she had spent far too long by the window peering at old photographs. More correctly, the old photographs had spent far too much time in the sun.
The more you bring these old delicate things out in the open, the more likely they are to fade and become useless.
*
So why is it that we rewrite our lives in the process of memory? Aren't things so much more interesting - maybe not easier, but interesting - in their entirety?
To smooth over the loose ends, to brighten the corners and add a cinematic edge, is so appealing. This is what we are doing after all, making scripts out of our lives. Maybe the lighting cues never are quite right, but we recall things with the eye of the director, watching his final masterpiece come into the public arena.
By creating a film out of our memories, it feels like we give permanency to ourselves, maybe. We can't ever completely be forgotten, completely be gone, while our life still sits yellowing on the shelves.
Perfectly finished, like it never was the first time around.
User Reviews
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-08-02 16:15:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ess-arr (user info) at 2004-08-02 10:59:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this was cool, nice thinkpiece
Submitted by maiorano84 (user info) at 2004-08-02 01:21:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Someone may have once said, or at least should have said, that the two strongest forces in the universe are death and nostalgia. Both are undeniable and omnipresent"
Yea, I make up funny words too.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2004-08-01 23:36:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this. I think this is the best post I've ever read from you, olas.
Submitted by Tenyuki (user info) at 2004-08-01 23:16:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I skimmed it. It was too long. I read the Pinocchio portion. I read that book for Philosophy. Pinocchio should have stayed dead.
I love your writing. I love your hair. AND I LOVE YOU.
+2
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-08-01 20:43:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice piece Squirrel.
Kinda sad though. Well melancholy like memory.
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-08-01 17:52:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Mmmmm sundays.
Submitted by DavyJones (user info) at 2004-08-01 15:40:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-08-01 15:36:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This may be the best thing you've ever writeen.
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:51:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome. Nostaglgia always kicks my ass. I bet death will too.
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:48:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Whoa, I just realized that this is the post that's gonna get me 30,000 hits. Yay! I'm growing up.
This is also my 3000th review.
I need to uber less....
Submitted by JohnGalt (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:43:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is absolutely excellent.
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:42:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:37:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Submitted by YELLOW-MAN (user info) at 2004-08-01 13:24:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment