Musing on Nostalgia

There are those things for us that can linger in the back of one’s mind. For some reason, today, I have this ever-present wave of nostalgia washing over me. I can’t say that it’s exclusive to times in Chicago; rather the feeling is more predicated from a glimmering reminder. It’s just quite odd, this feeling of nostalgia.

Sometimes, when I am awash in it, it makes me wonder if it is not missing a time of one’s life, not a setting, or a period for which one loved a certain band—no. No, I think it is missing the innocence of one’s early twenties, or the simplicity of having one girlfriend for multiple months, sharing the same set of friends.

The recollection of the setting doesn’t involve the pain of the time, nor does it involve that time’s complexities. It’s almost as though, in nostalgia, we are able to take a setting in life out of its historical context. Methinks the same sort of thing applies to those feelings we have about past relationships, or things of the like.

While working today, my mind has meandered to years in Champaign-Urbana, Memphis, and Chicago. The thoughts or memories of Chicago have no substance to them; in fact, that could be said of all of aforementioned places—no substance, all fascia. It’s so fascinating how so much of the memory, if one ponders it can be utilizing the right-over-the-left hemisphere of the brain. I suspect that is the case, as it’s all been sensory recollection, not verbal specifics, more faces and scenery.