Nostalgia will Befall Ya

“Nostalgia is a seductive liar.” – George Wildman Ball

It is one of those perfect rainy mornings and all I wanted to do was stay curled up in Tanner’s bed snug and dry, sleeping in as late as we liked and maybe rolling out of the cover tangle for brunch at Sneakers in the very, very late afternoon. Sadly, there is this thing called “work” which somehow results in a bi-weekly paycheck and this motivated me out of bed and down to the office to do my duty.

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. Doug Larson

Last night was Tanner’s friends’ Seamonster potluck with yummy food, interesting people and a sudden, dramatic rainstorm. Check out Tanner’s blog for a far better description of the evening and pictures too! Anyway, maybe it was the rain or meeting new people or perhaps it was that discussion with the boy from next door about California but I got hit with a massive wave of nostalgia something awful. You know how they say “Paranoia will Destroy Ya?” Well, probably the same thing could be said of nostalgia, but I can’t think of a way to rhyme it.

“It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.” – Anatole Broyard

There we were. Having a perfectly fine evening, slightly wet and sauced and I was waxing nostalgic about places I miss in Cali: Bolinas Beach, Chrissy Fields, the back deck of Club Mallard, Cordonices Park, the Berkeley Rose Garden, the Cheeseboard, Mountain View Cemetery, the view at night on the San Rafael bridge, the Mission on a rainy evening, the Kabuki Hot Springs, Market Hall on a busy afternoon. And more than any of the places, it is the people that I miss so much: Nessa in LA, Jeff Gouin in Alameda, Jeff and Charlie in SF, Jen Hing in Richmond, Molly Lynch in LA, Keith and Travis in SF, Sue in Albany, Sarah in SF, Renee in Oakland, and Joanne in LA.

Nostalgia, the vice of the aged. We watch so many old movies our memories come in monochrome. - Angela Carter

It is hard to go through the motions of meeting new people and trying to make new connections when you are missing your old friends. I have made so many friends in my 32 yrs on the planet that it seems almost pointless to make new ones, especially when I am so adept at losing touch with the old ones. Occasional emails and phone calls every three months don’t really do it for me. I want to roll out of bed past noon on a Monday, grab my housemates Jeff, Nessa and Jared and walk down to Saul’s deli for pre-breakfast pickles, lattes in bowls, blintzes and scrapple. Greg brings us our steaming platters of food in record time and drops off his latest CD release, and at the next table are my other housemates and their VA clan slurping down coffee. Then we toodle through Black Oaks Books, grab the East Bay Express and some book from the used section and make a trip to Peet’s for coffee beans and more coffee, say hi to the people who work there and then browse the flip flop selection at Longs on our walk home.

"Imagination equals nostalgia for the past, the absent; it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality” – Cyril Connolly

But it is so silly to stick my head in a past which has been over for many, many years now. Long ago, Nessa moved to LA and had a baby. Jared is in in Iowa and Jeff is in Alameda and I can’t recall the last time I saw them. Sauls, Peets and Longs still remain but our house has new people living in it. How do you clear your head of these cobwebs before they wrap you up and swallow you?

"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." - Peter de Vries

Tanner listened patiently to all my nostalgic reminiscences and then he said, “10 years from now you are going to remember this night of lying here in the rain cuddling up with a boy and you will be nostalgic about it.”

“I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s mine.” – Lou Reed

But NO! If I am very lucky and play my cards right, in 10 years I hope to have achieved some sort of inner peace and superhuman ability to live in the “now” so that I will be able to enjoy that exact moment that I am living. And perhaps I might look back and remember a rainy evening 10 years ago and smile to myself but then I can continue forward without getting snared in the sticky webs of the past. How I will get to that enlightened, carpe diem sort of place, I have no idea. But perhaps Tanner can give me pointers since he is so darn smart. In the meantime, this rain is nice to watch out the window with a cup of tea and a dash of nostalgia – after all, once the sun returns, my nostalgia is sure to be replaced with an empty brain and sunny dazed thoughts of grilled meat, inner tubes, mystery novels and hammocks…hopefully…

"We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time." Art Buchwald

But since it is not summer just yet, I will indulge in some more California nostalgia. Here is a montage all about the Californian places and people that I miss so much it hurts:

And here is another video montage Ode to Cali.

“Fiction is not imagination. It is what anticipates imagination by giving it the form of reality. This is quite opposite to our own natural tendency which is to anticipate reality by imagining it, or to flee from it by idealizing it. That is why we shall never inhabit true fiction; we are condemned to the imaginary and nostalgia for the future.” – Jean Baudrillard