Tag: nostalgia

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends and readers. It is Christmas decorating day, here at my household, so I wrote a poem about it. My regular readers know that Sunday is devoted to poetry here at Adulting- Second Half. I consider Sunday to be a “poetry workshop space”, like Santa’s workshop, but we work with words here. Be like a poetry elf, and add your own additions to my Comments section, if you please. Today’s poem that I wrote is more “tongue in cheek” that my usual offerings. It’s just my mood today.

The Day Has Come

Why does decorating for Christmas change every year?

Sometimes it is something that I do, which I love and adore,

Sometimes it is nothing but a big, fat, ugly chore,

Sometimes I question if that ratty angel is starting to look like a whore,

Sometimes I only decorate, so to not seem like a grinch or a bore,

Sometimes the nostalgia rips me apart, right at my very core,

Sometimes I close a box and remind myself that “less is more”,

Sometimes the lights don’t work again, and we have to go to the store,

Sometimes I get competitive, as if our decorations get assigned a score,

Sometimes decorating gets precarious, and I have to yell “Fore!”

When it seems like the tree could fall over, and make a mess on the floor.

But in the end, when complete, the decorations make me revel in AMORE,

For, the feeling of hope and wonder is something that always stays the same.

The Magic

There is a man who lives up the road from us, who puts on a synchronized to music, Holiday light show, the likes that I have never seen. It beats the shows that I have witnessed at high-end outdoor shopping malls. There is no doubt in my mind that this man must have worked as a light and sound engineer for Disney, or was a major concert engineer for big time bands, in his younger years. He even has a snow machine (which in the South, equates to bubbles that seriously look like real snow, until you taste a “flake”.) The extravaganza goes on forever. He even incorporates Hanukkah and Kwanzaa music. Last night, there was a line of cars, walkers and bikers staring at the wondrous sight. Little kids were dancing in the streets. The mastermind, himself, passed around candy canes. It was overwhelmingly, breathtakingly fabulous. And I am sure that his immediate neighbors are ready to kill him.

I had such a staggering concoction of emotions stirring up in me, as I watched the lights dance vividly to all the familiar Christmas tunes which I have heard for almost 49 years now. I had a childlike giddiness and anticipation, mixed with some nostalgia, plus some numbness from sensory overload, with a pinch of annoyance and sympathy for his neighbors across the street, all topped with a contagious joy that came from admiration and pride for this man’s talent and spirit and excitement. I wanted it to end and yet to never end, all at the same time.

It struck me as to why we have come to so outwardly express our jubilance for the holiday season, as a society. There is probably no other time in the year, where the blend of feelings and emotions inside of each of us, reaches such a crescendo, such a summit, such a summation of what it feels to be alive, that it has to burst out of us, somehow, in brightly colored lights, in loudly-sung, familiar, merry songs, in rich, decadent food, and in sparkly apparel. And then, after all of that “bursting”, we are left searching for some solace and calm, which we find in a quiet, peaceful manger scene or a beautiful lighted candle, or in the peaceful face of a sleeping loved one, or in an untouched snowy night under a starry sky. Perhaps, the holidays are just a microcosm of our entire living experience. I guess that is maybe the real meaning of the oft quoted, “magic of the holidays.”

The Old and the New

Today I’m going to see people I haven’t seen in a very long time.  This includes adults and children.  The “children” are now teenagers who will tower over me and I’ll say the same dumb thing that was always said to me by middle-aged people when I was their age, “Oh my goodness!  The last time I saw you, you were only this big!”  I’ll put my hand at some arbitrary spot near to my waist and they will smile at me awkwardly, silently wondering how the hell they are supposed to respond to that statement.

The other adults and I will politely tell each other the opposite statement.  “Oh my goodness!  You haven’t changed one bit!”  We all know that’s a lie.  Someone recently told me that aging is like a toilet paper roll, the closer you get to the end of it, the faster it goes.  That is the truth.  Still, it will feel good to hug each other and know that even though we all have aged, the familiar essence of the core people we care about, is still nestled into those slightly older, worn for the wear packages, showing that we all have experienced all sorts of life, since we have seen each other last.

I’m expecting the kids to be the most changed, of course.  I’m really curious to talk to them individually.  When kids are little, you kind of lump them into a group and they like it that way; they are “the kids”.  At gatherings, kids would much prefer to be in little bands of their own company versus awkwardly staring at the adults leering down at them, comparing that particular child’s growth chart movement from the previous year.  My husband even noted recently that for years, he saw our four children, as more of one entity, “the kids.”  Now that our children are spreading out in all different directions, it’s easier to see their individuality and their unique qualities and tastes, more than it ever was before.

As for the adults, even though I haven’t see them in forever, I can already predict their actions, what they’ll say, and how they’ll laugh.  I am expecting these peoples’ certain idiosyncrasies to remind me of our shared history and familiarity.  Undoubtedly, they’ll be expecting my predictable behaviors, as well.  Sometimes, I wonder if this is really a fair way to approach it, though.  All parties involved, adults and children have gone through quite a bit of experience since we have seen each other last.  These experiences will certainly have molded and molted all of us, young and old.

Years ago, I copied this quote by Azar Nafisi, out of one of my son’s yearbooks.  It is a good one:

“You get a strange feeling when you are about to leave a place.  You will not only miss the people you love, but you will miss the person you are now, at this time and this place, because you will never be this way ever again.  But you are excited for the person you are swimming towards and look forward to the new you that awaits in the distance.”

It doesn’t matter, whatever the age we are, all of us are always swimming towards new versions of ourselves.  This will happen always, while we are still alive and breathing.  Perhaps I should approach the adults just as I plan to do with the kids, with wide-eyed curiosity, of who they are today and what effects their experiences have had on the persons they are still becoming.  Hopefully, they will approach me in the same way and it will be like getting to know new people, but with that familiar comfort of shared experiences long ago.

How to Branch Out

I have written before about the fact that I have started a game that I call Family Hashtag.  Every day my immediate family members post a hashtag and a word or a phrase that reflects the kind of day that they are having, to a family chat.   It is my sneaky way to get comfort in the fact that they are all alive and breathing and still interested in connecting with the family unit.  We have quite a streak going now, of not missing a day when we all have posted to the chat.  My daughter posted this the other day:

#Let’sGetThisBread

My sons immediately connected with it and they knew exactly what she was talking about.  As it seems to be the way of things these days, I had to “look it up” for my husband and I to get caught up on the knowledge.  Apparently it has become quite a popular meme in the last week or so.  It means (from a good source on the internet):

The term itself is nothing new – it’s just a sort of encouragement to work hard and get the rewards that the work brings.

I had the feeling that’s what it might mean but I didn’t want to use it in the wrong sense and embarrass myself and my family (it’s happened before).  Apparently, I’m not the only person in my generation who was a tad confused.  I read that when one man got the same “Let’s Get This Bread” text from his son, he offered to stop at Costco after work to buy a loaf.

This is such a weird stage of life when you feel like you are straddling two cultural entities.  One of my feet is sitting comfortably in the nostalgia and familiarity of my slightly outdated tastes in music, manners and the comfort of rooms in my house that reluctantly need to be updated.  The other foot feels like it needs to step forward and stay relevant and interested and connected with the things that are striking a chord in my children and the members of their generation.  Sometimes I look at my dogs wistfully and think, “Damn, it would be a lot easier to be a dog.”

We are getting quotes on updating a bathroom in our home that is very retro 1980s style.  We’re not sure whether to hang on long enough knowing that it very soon may turn into a valuable antique relic room that we could offer tours and charge money to see it.  Recently, while shopping, I saw a game called “90s Nostalgia Game”.  I thought to myself, “Wow, if we are starting to get nostalgic for the 90s, that can only mean everything that I have from the 1970s and 1980s has to be museum quality.”

Anyway, we have been gathering quotes.  The first man who came out to give us a quote on updating our bathroom was the age that I am starting to see in a lot of authority figures around town, like police officers and teachers and store managers.  He was probably about 30, just slightly older than my kids.  He looked aghast when he saw the bathroom he had to work with and essentially gave me the idea that we would probably just have to blow up that entire corner of our home.  The second lady to come out to look at our bathroom was my around my age.  I was drinking a Green Vibrance Smoothie and we connected over that, comparing how much flax seed we both add to our smoothies these days.  When she looked at our bathroom, I think we both got a little misty-eyed.  I thought she might put her arm around me and we would bond over the overdone, yet strangely charming opulence of the 1980s.  I honestly liked and connected to both of these designers very much.  I think they both had very interesting ideas and points of view.

Perhaps it is a blessing to be in this stage of life where you have to expand and grow to be able to communicate and relate with your children and younger colleagues, yet you are still able to relate to the older generations and to retain an appreciation for the footing that they have provided.  Perhaps this time of life is actually the most expansive we’ll ever be.  If you look at a horseshoe curve, the middle part is the big bend.  It is pulled in two directions, so it is the longest stretch.  The middle part of the horseshoe curve has the biggest curve in it.  It must be like the seasoned branches of a tree that are able to be bent, but they are green enough so they don’t break.  Branches like this are old enough and long enough to be bowed, but still have enough vitality and youthfulness in them to not be too old, and brittle, and stuck; to just break and splinter and disintegrate.  Today, I consider myself a blessed, curved branch in this Tree of Life.