Saturday, April 11, 2009

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is looking at this blogger box and writing again. Listening to music that used to comfort you during a very different time and being surprised that it still does now. They say that smell is the most powerful connection to a distant memory. I agree. A man wearing a cologne that another man used to wear still brings me to my knees. When we have the ability to download smell off the internet we will need a more word more powerful than nostalgia.

All day I've been trying to think of a band that I can't remember (from another time). And find a CD to another band (from yet another time). All because I want to hear that song again. That song that played a thousand times when I was in that place with those people back then. I can picture it. I can feel it. But I can't hear it.

On an episode of The Sopranos, Tony said that "remember when" was the weakest form of conversation. What about thinking, picturing...am I wishing, longing? No, just remembering. Fondly. Looking back. Not on a time that was better than now. Just a time. A great time. One that gets better even as it moves further into the past. People I have lost touch with, but think of every so often. So thankful for what I've had. Even if I no longer have.

Every memory is clouded with joy and perfection. This must be a survival mechanism. One of the things I realized when I started writing was that I wanted to capture the accuracy of my feelings during the moment. The truth of what happened. How I really felt at the time because I knew I would not be able to trust the memory of it. And it's true. Looking back on things I wrote in the past I surprise myself. I don't remember myself. Somehow it's a pleasant feeling. One that makes me want to look forward instead of back.

Monday, February 16, 2009

listen

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Arch

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Found

Monday, November 17, 2008

"Life, thought the naked man, was a hell, with rare moments recalling some ancient paradise."

~Italo Calvino, Difficult Loves

Monday, October 20, 2008

It snowed today

It started here.

With a beginning like that, how could it not end in happily ever after?

So random, two people crossing paths. Each roaming freely for months hauling around backpacks both to end up there: in that country on that beach on that day at that time.

A passion and a love that grew so strong, so fast, so unexpected.

3 years flash by. There are more trips. Stories get written. Songs are sung. Moments of pure unadulterated joy and freedom.

And then the inevitable?

Somehow my heart was already in pieces before it ended. Every time we hurt it's every time we've been hurt. What was once a carry-on flung over my shoulder becomes a trunk that two people cannot carry.

And so it ends. In a city on a street at night.

3 weeks go by. I cry. I read. I run. I take long walks with my camera. I stare at white walls.

I know I will spin again. That is inevitable. And as for happily ever after?

I still believe.

Sunday, October 19, 2008