Nostalgia

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the value of songs. I’m thinking of songs that have a distinct and memorable melody and meaningful lyrics. Songs that trigger loving memories. Songs that speak of heartbreaks or hardships…

Most of our stories are incomplete – the stories that need pages for the telling. Most of the illustrative quirks, curiosities, endearments, and the very molecular breath of personality go into the dust when the body dies…

Landing here with suspicious alacrity, just peruse the landscape; it looks completely different than the tour guide in more youthful times said it would be. Life was complicated as a teenager, wasn’t it? With hormones sloshing around…

The music of my youth was more than melody and words. It was a kind of guidance into adult life, a soundtrack for thoughts and feelings that I didn’t know how to reach on my own but were given to me by the likes of Carole King, Joni Mitchell…

The beginning of a new year is a good time to reflect on not only the memories of the year prior, but the accumulation of memories that define who we are. Certain milestones, natural and manmade disasters, joys, triumphs, and crises are all considered…

Sometimes there are things that we don’t even notice are gone. And other times, we see the translucent outline of what once was, because of the history it embodies, because of the story it keeps alive in us. The past informs who we are…

By the time we arrive in our seventh decade, most of us have lost a number of loved ones. Some of those individuals might have been ancestors who were mentors, or those who changed our lives in some way. Ancestors can also be places…

During times of transition, feelings of nostalgia are pronounced. We yearn for what was. Bonding with colleagues at work. Evenings at the pub with good friends. Precious, fleeting moments with children and family. It’s easy to indulge in a whirlpool of remembering when…

Fall is here, and I admit that I have mixed feelings about its arrival. Many people say fall is their favorite season and why not? The days cool down, the trees change colors, the air feels crisp and sometimes carries the aroma of burning leaves…

Do you ever find yourself caught in a repetitive mental loop? It is not uncommon, with more time on our hands, to relive our careers or past challenges from our personal lives. Some memories are quite horrifying, but the sum of these experiences…