Nostalgia - it is a word that conjures a variety of responses. Is it a good thing? The word emanates with emotion, loss and seperation of the past. The illusion of something no longer tangible, a memory of the senses, of time and space long past....and yet we search for that point in time and try and relive it.
For me returning to my home city is full of loss and seperation...things just aren't the same but I still carry these illusions around with me.
The River seems narrow, the ferry ride not as long or splendid as my childhood memories would have me believe. My school is now a Tesco Supermarket and my old house in Wavertree is a mecca for student housing and appears barren and lacking in any character. And yet so many memories linger there for me - and that is what nostalgia is truly - only memories.
There is no connection between past and now - only illusion or nostalgia if you like to use a sweeter word. It is all Maya - illusion and as in Buddhism one of the first major teachings of impermanence....its a hard one to accept.
I think perhaps the focus on this hour, this minute and this day is the ony way to survive nostalgia...be in the moment and live it to the fullest. Yet there still is a part of me that wants to rediscover somewhere here to give me a glimpse back in time to the world I once lived in.....such is life...
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