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When We Remember 2015, What Will Evoke Our Nostalgia?
I’m so prone to nostalgia, and so aware that I’m prone to it, that I’ve in the past sent notes to my future self to correct my tendency for emotional historical revisionism. I was prompted to search for one of these after seeing a photo of an old flame’s high school yearbook on Facebook — which filled me with nostalgia — and, to my amazement, I found the very note. It was stuffed in a pile of papers in my attic, and had somehow survived more than 30 years of my peripatetic wanderings.
Any historian would be satisfied, based on this documentary evidence, that I should not have felt nostalgic. I was in fact miserable after we split up. I made a point of explicitly recording this. I strongly suspected that one day I’d be wistful about the whole business. This thought infuriated me, given that I was sure the experience merited no such sentiment. The note from Claire-of-yore to Claire-of-now is as clear as it gets: “However you’re tempted to remember this, don’t kid yourself: You didn’t enjoy this at all.”
Didn’t help. Looking at my own handwriting made me nostalgic. Finding that notebook in my attic made me nostalgic. Reexamining my memories of a period that I know for a fact I didn’t enjoy — it’s documented! — made me laugh with nostalgia and wistfulness. So obviously, no matter how awful I feel about any experience, I’ll one day be nostalgic about it; and given this propensity, it struck me: it’s just inevitable that one day I’ll be terribly nostalgic for 2015. Can’t be helped, no use fighting it, I just will be.
And so, probably, will you.
Now, the odd thing about nostalgia, is that it can’t be conjured up for the present and can scarcely even be imagined. So I’m looking around me and thinking, “nostalgic for what?” I know it will be something, but what? What do you imagine we’ll all one day feel nostalgic about?
What sights and sounds and smells and characteristic signs of our times do you reckon will one day evoke that aching yearning for the past — however lousy, degraded, and meretricious they seem to us now? What will come to look to us touchingly old-fashioned? What lousy 2015 brands will bring back floods of memories? What objects that now seem common as dirt will one day be our treasured antiques and collectors’ items?
And do you think it’s possible that we’ll one day remember Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair the way we now remember Captain Stubing on the Love Boat?
Published in Culture, General
Al Jolson’s long-lost daughter, a.k.a. Rachel Dolezal.
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Claire,
Regards,
Jim
My kids are 9 and 11, and a pile of fun. I imagine I’ll be nostalgic for the time when they were this age — those innocent years just before adolescence — when they still saw Dad as the most awesomest person ever.
I even have a note from the 9-year-old to prove it.
That’s what I’m going to be nostalgic for.
You’re ruining it for me.
I tried, Claire, but thinking about nostalgia made me nostalgic… I couldn’t bring my thoughts up to the present.
Oh, but here’s one: human-driven cars, if the self-driving thing really happens.
Self-driven cars might prove to be safer and more convenient (though at present I admit the idea rather horrifies me), but I would miss driving my own.
What will trigger nostalgia about 2015 at some unspecified time in the future?
I am almost afraid to say it, but . . .
Stuff like that. Depends on whether or not the Democrats win the 2016 elections. If they do, I suspect these will be future nostalgic yearnings.
Seawriter
I write notes to my future self too. I also keep a journal for my children to read one day. Nothing profound. Don’t gloss it up. Just everyday life.
I think in 30 years we’ll be nostalgic for the many middle of the road fast food joints that overcrowd our lives today.
I do feel nostalgia for the present. It happens when the family is together, as we rarely are, especially when the grandkids are involved, which isn’t very often since they live far away. I try to imprint the seconds and minutes because I so long to be with them when they are away. I reserve the term “spot in time” for such occasions.
The worst nostalgia is when I see photos of my children as babies or little children. Then Yeats’ words come to mind
I sigh who kiss you,
For I must own,
That I shall miss you,
When you are grown.
Sometimes you miss them so intensely that if you had the power you’d go back, even knowing that you’d also have to repeat the painful experiences.
Hilarious!!!
I hate driving now but I think I’ll be nostalgic for a time when cars were driven.
Does anyone find nostalgia painful? Or am I just a weird one?
I can’t look at pictures of my kids when they were little. I get a rush of emotion that I can’t handle and I just can’t look at them; I think it’s the longing to be back there.
Yes, you will – very much so. When they’ve walked out the door on their way to their adult lives, which you will be excited (and mortified, at the same time) to see, you will be hit with this deep nostalgia for their younger selves. It really hits you. My wife has real pangs about this; she misses our daughters’ physical presence tremendously. I’m not as far gone as her, but it’s still strong. You find yourself looking at old photos and/or movies. Wow, very powerful emotions. It becomes an ache.
You remind me of my sister & I – we bathe in nostalgia – we hold dear so many pieces of our past with family – (plus our obsession with old books!!) .
For 2015, I’ll look back on (1) holidays with my husband’s family, (mine are few and out of state), (2) my pets – currently Dixie who looks like the character you are holding!), (3) Healthcare as a choice – wait that was 2014 4. Photos from friends, neighbors, family, (get prints – like your nephew Claire– your dad! – your spontaneous vacation!) – no iPhone and then delete). I’m the keeper of husband’s family photos – there are plenty of my photos, cats, funny hairdos, places we visited over 28 years of marriage! SO important. 5. Handwritten letters, cards and pretty notes – My mother in law keeps my notes – I keep hers in her beautiful “cursive” handwriting! These will be thing of the past – write letters while you can – they will be kept! Write in your handwriting how much you love your family and friends – love letters. My old boyfriend from high school actually kept cards and letters I had written him when we connected years later! 6. When someone was not persecuted for their faith, and was not confused by their gender. 7. Affordable food and basics! – $50 for cheap beach chair? $2.50 for 3 peaches? Help! 8. When marriage and babies were important. Spend time with those who matter! 9. Free Speech – It’s disappearing – 10. Respect again for law enforcement!
Just finished mowing the lawn with my new self-propelled mower. I’m already nostalgic for my old Sears knuckle buster.
That all too brief sliver of time after the Republicans took control of both houses and before they proved themselves to be the 21st Century version of the Bourbons: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
A couple of weeks ago I rode the Metro to downtown D. C. and it didn’t break down. I will always have a special place for that day.
I get to cop out: I don’t do nostalgia. I don’t look back except in a post-mortemy sort of way or to wonder about this or that person from idle curiosity.
Sort of like Casey, I’ve done some writing for the sake of my grandkids, but whether they read the stuff is entirely up to them. I’ll be ashes–and if my wife loves me, those ashes will be moseying along in outer space until the heat death of the Universe.
Eric Hines
In the year 2040, we will look back and be nostalgic for the United States of America.
By then the coastal states in the East will have broken away to form the Atlantic Socialist States. (A.S.S.)
California and the West coast states will have been expelled because they could no longer govern themselves. Too many factions demanding too many conflicting perks. They will be the Pacific Collective. (P.C.)
The current center will divide into the Industrial South and Agrarian Plains. Florida will merge with Cuba. The Southwest will merge back with Mexico its tail between its legs begging for help. Texas will have been a separate Republic for 15 years already.
Good Times.
I think my reaction to loss—of which nostalgia is a minor manifestation viewed through rose-tinted glasses—is extremely disordered. Being on the road on a business trip, calling my parents, having them tell me a pastor’s daughter I knew well as a teen had been killed in a car crash sending me on a drinking binge that ended with me sliding down the bathroom wall to the floor, crying. This Mother’s Day, same call—but this time, instead of hearing about a beloved neighbor dying (that, I’m afraid, comes with the territory when your parents are in their 80s), hearing about a high school classmate dying. No drunken sliding down a bathroom wall this time. This time I just promised a friend of half a dozen years and two very successful public speaking engagements with whom things had gotten off-kilter that we could always talk… then a couple of days ago told her I’d reconsidered, goodbye, please don’t contact me again. I wasn’t in love with either of the dead women, hadn’t heard from or even thought about them in decades. It’s just that they were no longer in the world, prematurely, and I have not dealt with it well at all.
I don’t understand people for whom loss isn’t a cataclysm and the creeping fog of failing memory a devastating punishment from a vengeful God.
The funny thing is, nostalgia, as opposed to this, does make sense to me: the rose-tinted glasses are our talisman against the horror of loss. I am not surprised in the slightest that the younger Claire told her older self “don’t kid yourself,” any more than I am that the older Claire is asking her younger self “Who are you kidding?” Emotional rites of passage can’t be disrupted, even by those self-aware enough to know they’re coming.
And maybe those rose-tinted glasses are a blessing. From a loving, forgiving God.
It seems there are so many more options when it comes to media and entertainment the things I wax nostalgic about will probably be different from the things others will be nostalgic about. Large collectivized shared experiences are becoming rarer. I guess we’ll all share where we were when Obama was elected and all the significance and joy we shared in finally conquering racism. I’m sure we’ll wax poetic about Hillary too. Sigh…
Food trucks and boutique food shop things in general. Like cupcake places. I don’t patronize these much , but they grew out of nowhere and they will probably die off. But if nothing else, I like the aesthetics of them.
Writing letters back and forth with MLH.
R> in general. But especially the PIT, the AMUs, the Meetups. The Ricochet Kama Sutra. All that stuff.
My cat.
There’s a guy here in SLC who just died whose business and life’s work was a violin making school. It has been there in the background of my entire life, and it’s just remarkable that he was able to make such a thing survive this long.
Also my pet black widow spider.
The Kardashian/Jenner clan. Sort of a dark nostalgia there.
The ability to just go shoot guns, either indoors or out in the desert.
4chan, memes, image macros in general.
Going to StuffMart and buying whatever stuff I want, including any kind of groceries I can imagine, and if they don’t have it getting it in 2 days after ordering it on line. Cranking the AC up to 11 when it’s stifling outside, and cranking the heat up to 11 when it’s freezing.
After the Iranian or Nork EMP, or the ISIS dirty bomb, or the Chinese hack that crashes the electric grid (or just as likely all of these at once) and the store shelves are bare, and we’re eating cold canned food with our fingers if we can get it, I’m going to look back on that with real nostalgia.
No worries.
Ricochet is here to stay,
It will never die.
It was meant to be that way,
Though I don’t know why.
I don’t care what people say,
Ricochet is here to stay.
Ric, Ric, Ric,
Oh baby,
chet, chet, chet
Oh baby
Ric, Ric, Ric,
Oh baby
chet, chet, chet
Oh baby
Ricochet will always be
Our ticket to the end.
It will go down in history,
Just you wait, my friend
Ricochet will always be,
It’ll go down in history.
Eric Hines
My car tried to drive very fast by itself this spring (it’s called “sudden unintended acceleration” and it’s as scary as it sounds) so I’m not a fan of self-driving cars, but I might be nostalgic for driving before I knew such a thing existed.
All nine of my grandchildren are still at innocent ages, and still like to spend time with me, and I expect to look back fondly on this time with them.
Mizz B., your brand new insights into our common, ancient, secret experience have me speechless. So I can only say ”
(Or I could also say, “I hope you keep writing more stuff. I don’t even want you to run for President even though I’m in every other way a normal American, because you’d have to stop writing this stuff, although I would definitely vote for you and send you some money in the unfortunate event.”)
My kids are babies and small children now so… yeah. If we move, the house we live in now because I love it. (But if we don’t I might be a little crazy ten years from now because it’s kind of small for four teenagers, even if we don’t have any more.)
Ricochet? Well, I hope that stays awhile.