Nostalgia

“We can never go back. We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago.” -bell hooks

“Over and over, the hand of memory reaches back, grasps for the bygone moment when life was simpler or brighter or more redolent with aliveness, forgetting that the only thing for the keeping is the naked now, vulnerable as a newborn, total as eternity. The great challenge, the great triumph, is to make of memory an instrument of presence.” -Maria Popova

“You have to let go of the old and go through a stage of unknowing or confusion, before you can move to another level of awareness or new capacity.” -Richard Rohr, book The Naked Now

“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.” -Thomas Wolfe, novel You Can’t Go Home Again

“Nostalgia is a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.” -Brene Brown

The word nostalgia is derived from two Greek roots: “Nostos” meaning homecoming or return to one’s native land. “Algos” meaning pain, grief, or distress. Originally, the term was used to describe a severe, sometimes fatal medical diagnosis of extreme homesickness, specifically among Swiss mercenaries fighting far from the Alps. Over time, it has evolved into an emotional longing for a past time, place, or experience rather than a physical location. And thanks to capitalism and the rapid, modern transformation of our society, we are particularly susceptible to longing for simpler times.

The cure?

Gratitude for the past. But then, letting it go so that we can be wide open and available to the present.

The below poem “Weeds” by Diane Suess helps us with this:

The danger of memory is going

to it for respite. Respite risks

entrapment. Don’t debauch

yourself by living

in some former version of yourself

that was more or less naked. Maybe

it felt better then, but you were

not better. You were smaller, as the rain

gauge must fill to the brim

with its full portion of suffering.

What can memory be in these terrible times?

Only instruction. Not a dwelling.

Or if you must dwell:

The sweet smell of weeds then.

The sweet smell of weeds now.

An endurance. A standoff. A rest.

P.S. – Hope you had a great and relaxing Memorial Day. Speaking of, read this great poem “Ode For Memorial Day” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. While it was written in 1896 and is about the Civil War, it pays tribute to all who gave their lives in service to our country.