NAVIGATING NOSTALIGA
Summer has me dripping in nostalgia. I can’t stop craving the summers I grew up in – the feeling of them. Open fields of cheatgrass surrounded by mellow mountains, crisp thin air, lush grass, big skies, shaking aspens, bugling elk. Building heat with crashing afternoon thunderstorms. Wet sagebrush. Getting wild with friends – running, tumbling, building, driving. The satisfaction of a hot sweaty day cooled down by a monsoon. The downpour turns into rainbows which spread into a sunset.
It happens again in winter – I crave dark, packed houses and restaurants, warm with bodies. Parents with full wine glasses and Dale sweaters opening up and letting loose. Everyone from the kids table running between their legs in mischief. Fireworks exploding above while we cook up some trouble below. Noise poppers, bonfires, roman candles, sparkler races.
When my surroundings contradict the memories, I feel like I’m missing out on years of important sensory. Like every month that goes by that I don’t experience the hot-heat-cooked feeling of mid-summer, my body gets that much colder – like it will never make it through winter if I don’t heat my bones thoroughly this summer. And how will it ever be possible to fit all the summer endeavors in if it never even gets warm enough to swim comfortably. Why is it still so cold in the morning? In July, you should be getting up early to beat the heat then take a siesta. But on July 3rd of this year, I wore a puffy jacket and sat with a heavy blanket on the porch in the morning.
In Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound – a phantom limb. Its more powerful than memory, it is a deep ache for somewhere. Nostalgia was originally deemed a psychosis.
I have found myself at a loss for how to cope with nostalgia. On one hand I never want to forget or even diminish the memories of my childhood. But I also feel like everything pales in comparison, and that the New Mexican dirt is in my bones. Like a magnet is always pulling me back. I have a difficult time admiring the beauty around me – the deep, dark, lush forests and icy raging rivers of the Northwest. The rocky, windy beaches. Because I am always craving wide vistas and thin air scented with pinon and sagebrush. And sun. I just want sun on my face and in my bones.
To be more present and mindful in my life now and forever I have to find a way to let go of my aching nostalgia.
