nostalgia kyla You can't go home again. Other people can. Just not you. 050824 ... birdmad i walk through places where i have been and it takes on the feel of some sort of perverse archaeology, some slowly decaying crime scene. the house in which i grew up? we sold it last year, it's since been bought and sold yet again childhood haunts? torn down, paved over early loves? married off to surer and better men than i strangely though, even amongst the odd, wistful vestiges of what i once new, i am quite content to become a living ghost, haunting my own memory 050824 ... leif I use this as a defense for my heart. Whenever I struggle I allow waves of nostalgia to crash all over me. And I let myself drown in longing for the safety of the life I chose to leave(because it was drowning me in its own powerful way). I know its a false longing, and yet here I am longing anyway. What a powerful ocean of lies I've learned how to cry. 140826 ... leif I do curate the most curious things on my blog and to find things that speak to me long after the fact is somewhat thrilling. I think you may know yourself, Meg. I think you may know yourself too well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpcxWG7asA&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DCAVjH9jR-1u5F8TCSGsV3 140826 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Nostalgia hit me this morning: I read halfway through The Secret Garden before putting it away on the old-books bookshelf. It's a nice illustrated edition - the artist can draw animals and people wonderfully, though the robin looks a bit static. And you don't have to believe in (consistently capitalized) Magic to appreciate the theme of people being restored to physical and mental health through nature and community. It's not so easy in real life, sure, but isn't this book kind of... sweet? I'm a sap. I'm a huge, gigantic sap. But at least I'm sticky and part of a tree that way. 140902 ... e_o_i Now where did that blathe go? It didn't even show up yet. 140902 ... e_o_i There we are. Hm. Blather seems as tired as me. I guess I'll have to go to sleep and dream of gardens that magically write articles for me. 140902 ... tender_square “i’m feeling nostalgic for this neighborhood, even though we still live in it.” he looked down at his shoes as we shuffled past the pittsfield crosswalk. “how can that be when we still live here, in this neighborhood?” “well, this used to be home and i felt settled here. and then things changed when we moved to ohio.” i considered this. it didn’t seem quite as accurate in my memory. “yes, but we felt that things were changing here before i’d been accepted for school, no? i think had we have stayed here, we’d still be in the same place as we are now.” “or pretty close to it.” we turned our heads toward each other and locked eyes as we walked for a few steps. “the neighborhood has remained the same, but the city has changed, that’s true.” we turned a corner, stepped on the road to give a pregnant lady walking a dog and pushing a stroller space. “i can’t help it, i’m a nostalgic bee,” he said. “there’s nothing wrong with that.” “change is hard.” “i know.” i could’ve just left it at that, but i pushed on. “the only constant is change.” we watched a guy cross the street and walk ahead of us, briskly. i thought he was walking towards one of the parked cars, he had a destination about him, yet he continued on past all of them. “i guess.” “that sounded reluctant.” “it’s hard for me; i moved around a lot years ago and i didn’t like it. you said some people stay in the same place for decades.” he didn’t realize that my parents have lived in the same home for 22 years until i’d mentioned it recently. they bought the house they still own when i was 15. “yeah, but can you say that people in those situations are conscious?” “what do you mean?” “i mean, are they aware of how they are living their life? that’s not to say that i value change over constancy, or that i’m implying that all folks who have stability somehow aren’t conscious of how they live.” “well, it sounds like it.” “i guess i just wondered if those ideas could be related somehow.” i shrugged. maybe i was looking for connections that weren’t there. maybe i was trying to justify my own experience. “the opposite can be true; all that moving around i did in my twenties was about getting away from something,” he argued. i thought about my own way of moving through the world, shedding skin, and whether it’s about leaving a part of me behind rather than arriving at an essential self. “this same nostalgia happened when i left high school, and with college—i didn’t want it to end.” “really?! i couldn’t wait to leave both.” “well, lucky you,” he said. “i don’t think so; many times in my life i’ve remained in situations that aren’t working for me, holding on until i can’t anymore.” we passed calvary church and the trunk-or-treat show occurring in the parking lot. we shifted our gazes to the unmoving cars and the drifting, costumed children between them. whenever i feel nostalgia, it’s for being a kid again. i remembered him telling me he had an analyst who called childhood eden, that it’s the garden we are expelled from as we grow up. “well, it’s not like those environments worked perfectly for me," he said. "i’d have a year where i felt like i’d reached a good place with everything and then it never lasted.” 211030 ... nr i feel like a 6-year-old sometimes in the way i cling to traditions. the past becomes the present when it continues into adulthood. i almost want to ask my brother if he wants to write silly letters to santa together over zoom because we forgot to do it for the first time since we were toddlers. almost. 211224 ... raze i feel such a fierce love for moments that will never be mine again. even the ones that broke me. sometimes i wish i could let go. throw them all away. turn my back and not even listen for the thud of life gone limp as it hits the dirt. and sometimes i'm grateful to have hands that are so much stronger than i thought they'd learn to be when i was young enough to believe i would live forever. 230313 what's it to you? who go blather from