Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that people are either nostalgic, or they are not. I think in my family it is split right down the middle. I fall into the very nostalgic category. I love old photographs and hearing stories about how things used to be.
I am not a hoarder, but I tend to keep items that remind me of particular times in my life. As a writer, I also like writing about events that were very impactful or life-changing for me. I have tried writing fiction by fabricating stories; it’s apparently not my genre unless the core of the story is true.
The word “nostalgia” originated from the combination of the Greek word, nostos (returning home) and algos (pain), which means the pain caused by homesickness was once thought of as pathological – causing anxiety, sadness, and insomnia. Of course, over the years, being nostalgic has become more commonplace and is no longer thought to be pathological. It is considered common and normal.
Nostalgia Means Different Things to Different People
There are those who believe nostalgia is positive and others view it as negative. For the most part, being nostalgic is very grounding, and it can increase one’s self-esteem. It can make us feel a sense of connection which I think right now many people are yearning for.
However, being too nostalgic can connect you with the past so much that you are not living in the present moment. My mother is very much like that. She’s also one of those people who tends to hold a grudge because someone did something 40 years ago and she still can’t forget it. I wonder if the ability to forgive has something to do with living in the present.
Positives of Nostalgia
More than 40 years ago, before my eldest daughter was born, I had to resign and go on bedrest. At the time, I was the director of nursing in a senior care facility. Many of the residents had family living in other states, so they did not get a lot of visitors. The activities director often gathered the residents in the community room and inspired them to reminisce about the happy and memorable times in their lives. This tends to help people improve their memory, enrich their psychological health, as well as fend off depression. Feeling nostalgic can also make us feel more loved and protected.
By the time we get into our sixth decade, we are pretty self-aware, and we know what we like and do not like. Many of us also become nostalgic about life events that were transformative or significant. I recently became very tuned into this while compiling my latest book, Women in a Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond.
While there was a lot of reflection in the poetry, almost all of it was nostalgic. It was very revealing to read what people remember and what they don’t. In any event, I do believe that having some nostalgia is very important to the human condition.
Here’s a poem I wrote a number of years ago, which was published in my poetry collection, Dear Anais, which is about something nostalgic for me:
Mother’s Strainer
Orange painted metal
with equal sized holes
stood on our kitchen corner counter
beside the ceramic sink.
It collected old coffee grains,
orange peels, prune pits,
and dead flowers from a garden
she nurtured more than the little girl in me.
Every few days she’d hold
each side by their handles
and quickly walk to our compost heap
in the far end of the yard
near our grouchy neighbor’s fence.
Once in a while, he’d scream
telling her she attracts
the neighborhood’s rodents
and that the pile of shit
will not give her better tasting vegetables.
She’d walk away, hands on hips,
muttering under her breath
as he yelled out that she
was a weird eccentric lady
with priorities out of order.
My father would walk into our backyard
screen door and apologize for her
like he’d done thousands of times before.
This woman who strains, filters and distills
all that comes before her
as if she had a sense of it all,
but the truth is she does not.
Questions to Reflect on:
What do you feel nostalgic about? Does nostalgia keep you living in the past or do you manage to live in the present?
