Nostalgia

As the only child living nearby, I recently inherited a dozen photo albums that were in my mom’s house following a move from her home of thirty years to assisted living. The musty smell of old paper and glue, which had permeated from the albums stacked in my guest room closet for the past six months, finally got to me. I decided to organize the hundreds (thousands?) of old photos to send to an online digitizing service. A few years ago, I compiled and documented family stories and history in a memoir, so I am now, by default, the Family Chronicler, Guardian of Memories. As the photos fade with time, I wanted to be sure to preserve them for my children and the rest of the family.

The first step was to unglue the photos from their paper home of many years. Some came off easily, others with the help of dental floss, while some could not be removed without being destroyed. This process took several days of diligent labor and the swallowing of quite a few allergy pills, as I am allergic to dust and mold.

Bitter pills to swallow, as it turns out. Reviewing and organizing the photos was a deconstruction of my past, a curated PowerPoint presentation of my whole life. The photos spanned over one-hundred years, from my grandmother’s black and white baby pictures to our last Thanksgiving gathering. Photos of my parents when they attended a dance at the University of Illinois. Their wedding in Chicago. My baby pictures and those of my siblings with my parents when they were young, when my dad was still alive. Our family vacations on Catalina Island. My old boyfriends and college roommates. My wedding. In hospital beds holding my newborn babies. Dressing up for Halloween, all smiles. Birthday parties and road trips to Morro Bay and San Francisco. Graduations. In other words, everything that makes up a life.

I am not a particularly sentimental person. I donate objects to Goodwill monthly and, according to my children, relentlessly. However, the whole process of reviewing the photos from every stage of my life has been humbling–an existential walk down Memory Lane. The photos reminded me of many happy events and people that I remember fondly, but also some painful events. They reminded me of the passage of time. Most of the people in the photos are no longer in this world. The babies have already grown up. My mom is near the end of her natural life, and I am about to turn sixty. This forced look-back has been poignant. Bittersweet. Nostalgic.

The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek words nóstos (homecoming) and álgos (pain) and is an overarching theme of Homer’s Odyssey. Nostalgia, despite its painful aspects, offers reassurance. It reminds us that quotidian life, though potentially boring, includes meaningful moments that we appreciate more when we look back. But, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, even if we yearn to, we can “never go home again” or recapture the past. The cast and stage have changed, and we are not the same people we were. When thinking about the past, we also need to consider that we are deluded by “rosy retrospection,” remembering the past as better than it was, conveniently filtering out the negative details.

This photo scanning project has also served as an important reminder to savor precious moments in my current life, even everyday ones. To pay attention, to notice, to be present and grateful. When my children were babies, and I was in the trenches of parenthood, I was told that “the days are long, but the years are short.” And indeed, the years were short. One day my children will flip through photos from their own childhoods, hopefully remembering moments and people fondly, and be grateful for everything they experienced in their one “wild and precious life,” as have I.