Tag: nostalgia

A Wistful Dream

Light and airy was how to describe this dream. It was all about a friend, Kev. I’ve not seen him in over twenty years. A military friend, we were assigned together in California (Onizuka). Though he was about ten years younger and assigned to a different unit, we spent a lot of time together during off hours. Our relationship continued after I retired from the military. Then we each moved. I went north and he went east. We are FB friends.

I recognized after thinking about the dream that he’s emblematic of better times, fun times…younger times. There’s nothing in any of this. I’m twenty years older and more aware of my life changes. Fold in the pandemic situation, isolation, and the travel and activity restrictions incurred with the situation. Add a cup of writing frustration. Stir in a tablespoon of malaise because of my broken arm and self-pity. Bake.

In the dream, I found a piece of paper. Reading its contents, I realized that it could only come from Kev and went to find him, which was immediately achieved. We struck it off again as we always had. He was back from a temporary assignment somewhere and filled me in Then, growing sad, he told me childhood stories and began a tragic tale about a female friend. He never finished that story.

It reminded me of so much that’s incomplete.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Such a simple mind have I. Watching the sunset pulling into the day, my mind punched the buttons for a 1984 Don Henley song, “Sunset Grill”.

Let’s go down to the Sunset Grill
We can watch the working girls go by
Watch the “basket people” walk around and mumble
And stare out at the auburn sky
There’s an old man there from the Old World
To him, it’s all the same
Calls all his customers by name

h/t to Google.com

I was feeling nostalgic. We’d hit 75 degrees F, and summer was strolling through, teasing us with looks and smells. Also, it was Wednesday, when my buddies and I meet to chat about science and the world and quaff a few pints.

It would’ve been a perfect day for the Sunset Grill.

 

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Sunday’s Bumper Sticker

An old, cynical one. Growing up around Pittsburgh, PA, numerous small businesses had this framed on the wall behind the cash register (or beside the register on the counter). I don’t see it much any longer. I blame credit cards.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I enjoy today’s selection of nostalgia-laced tones and plaintive words. Of course, being from 1984, it’s also a trip back to a different era, a time of Wayfarers and Deadheads.

I guess today’s theme is nostalgia for me. Here’s “Boys of Summer”, Don Henley, with Mike Campbell, who wrote the music and plays guitar on the song.

“The Boys of Summer”

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s music choice began with a Billy Collins poem.

I don’t know what neuron decisions forced the stream of a Billy Collins poem to intersect with a 1989 song, but after a bit of that music, the Billy Collins poem moved aside, like a little Fiat 500 moves aside for a semi-tractor bearing down at seventy-five, its horn blowing like a child with a toy.

Wondering about the switch, I wondered if it was about faith and expectations running up against experience and reality. Maybe that was far-fetched.

For the record, the Billy Collins poem is “Nostalgia”. I can’t say that it’s my favorite B.C. poem because I like so many of them so much. I think that if I had to recommend just one B.C. poem, it would be “Forgetfulness”. It begins,

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

h/t to PoetrySoup.com

Love that poem. Anyway, here’s the song, “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.

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In My Neck…

In my neck of existence, back when I was a child, snowstorms meant listening to the AM radio to see if school was canceled. Snowstorms meant bundling up to go outside to play in this substance, to sled, build, explore, and experience. The storms meant returning home to hot tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich with a dill pickle, or a cup of hot cocoa.

Snowstorms changed our neighborhood sounds, forcing out the usual ruckus in favor of cars’ soft sibilant hissing, or a spinning whine as tires looked for a bite in the slick mess. Rhythmic chains, clicking studs, and the snowplows’ grinding blades broke the stillness, enhancing the ambiance.

The house was hot and the outside was frigid. Sunshine seemed hidden by infinite layers. Trees were starkly outlined, but cars and houses were buried.

Snowstorms made the day special as routines bent and fractured under the snow’s weight. Now I anticipate the snowstorm for days, hoping it’ll return some of childhood’s joys when the snow closes us in, but the storms rarely stand up to hopes.

At least, in my neck of experience.

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Today’s Theme Music

Theme music is often about setting the stage for what’s about to happen. It’s a familiar, establishing your expectations.

On some days, I like defiant theme music to play in my head. They’re not necessarily days when I battling conditions; these can also be days when I’m determined to complete a task or pursue a dream.

Other days find me seeking melancholy theme music for accompaniment, fun music, or dance music. Theme music that’s nostalgic to me is frequent. That’s not surprising. Nostalgia is all about trying to achieve a particular state of mind. For me, that balance was often about hopes and dreams, youth and maturity, satisfaction and eagerness to pursue life.

The weather also affects my theme music choices. Today’s song, though, hits in many areas for me. It’s pouring rain through balmy air and upset winds. So I’m reaching for a song that accompanies my mind’s drift toward nostalgia and weather but remains something that

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Today’s Theme Music

I woke up with this song in my mind so I went with it.

It was written before I was born but it’s a pop standard, and has been used in movies. Lots of famous people covered it, and even some later groups, like The Cure. I know it from my mother playing it. I primarily grew up in the towns, townships and suburbs surrounding Pittsburgh. This was the 1960s. Hi-fi stereo was the iPad of the day and vinyl was emperor.

Mom listened to many records on her hi-fi stereo console and I became familiar with many artists through her enjoyment. This song was one of her favorites. I always enjoyed these lines:

“And if you should survive to 105,
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive!
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart.”

(n/t to Lyricsmode.com)

That’s what I awoke to in my mental jukebox today. Don’t know why. I slept well and had interesting but common dreams.

Here is Frank Sinatra with ‘Young At Heart’. He didn’t write the song but it was his hit, and it seems most associated with him. Enjoy. Cheers

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Intentions

Today is a sunny, drizzly, wintry late spring summer day, a rich day for meditating and harvesting nostalgia.

Such weather induces silence. The cats huddle for warmth, seeking places to stay dry and out-wait this weather. Children and adults find indoor activities. Less people prowl the neighborhood in cars, bikes and motorcycles. Nobody is cutting their lawn or trimming their trees and bushes. Few walkers and hikers pass the house. The birds become dormant on branches, indulging in their own weather meditation.Even the crows and jays aren’t saying anything.

With this quiet, I think of faded intentions and plans. I’m almost 60 now, and can pause and look back on what I thought would happen and what I planned, and compare it to what transpired. More, I remember insights that I planned to act upon and never did, words that I meant to say to people, feelings and emotions that were to be spoken, but never touched my lips. Time is an avalanche, and buries these moments. They may be our intentions but they’re subject to everyone’s timetable and existence.

Some people say this is summer, despite the calendar and the official start. Summer begins with some when Memorial Day passes, or June begins, or the schools let out. Whichever way you consider the season, as late spring, or summer, today’s air carries wintry odors and chills. It reminds me of Okinawa winters. Our tiny apartment, made of cinder blocks and lacking insulation, didn’t have any heater. We’d purchased a small electric heating tower to keep us warm.  Our family was me, my wife, and the cats. The cats were Crystal and Jade, felines that others surrendered for different reasons, that we took in. For a time, the family included Jade’s three kittens, too, but we found them homes.

Jade, a terribly smart and willful tabby cat, loved the heat and despised cold. She planted herself in front of the heater about six inches away. If you tried sharing her space, she’d bite your ankles until you moved out of her way. Mess with the heat and get the teeth. She’d make her displeasure known through her biting without moving anything except her head and mouth. The rest stayed huddled, keeping warm.

Such memories flooded me as I gathered my laptop and gear and packed it away to ‘go write’. We were in the snug, the small room where we do most of our living. The house is about 1850 square feet but we can usually be found within the snug’s hundred and twenty four square feet, reading books, on our computers, watching television, cats on the desk and laps. A small electric heater was on to combat the chilliness. The room’s thermometer claimed it was 69 in there but it didn’t feel that warm. It felt like an Okinawa winter. So the small electric heater was on because its more energy efficient than running the entire gas system.

We’re spoiled, I think, remembering back to those days of Okinawa. But sometimes it’s good to be spoiled.

I wish everyone was.

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