~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Sometimes the feelings of nostalgia are acute, whether exhilarating or painful.
Most of the time, nostalgia hits in small doses, like an itchy throat that goes away after a cup of tea. This kind of nostalgia can happen when I come across a photo of my 50-year-old son at the age of 3 riding his tricycle madly down a sidewalk in front of a house in a different town half a century ago. Sometimes this vision of him is the only one I can bring up, with or without photo — it’s too weird envisioning him with a few wrinkles and gray hair. I put the photo down and move on, the fleeting nostalgia tugging at the sad phenomenon of the swift passage of time. a blip on my day.
Sunday evening in Churdan I wallowed in heavy-duty nostalgia for an hour or so. The Town and Country Band played their hearts out as they effortlessly massaged us all with old-fashioned patriots’ favorites — a medley of marching, flag waving, drum and bugle music; then “Stars and Stripes,” at which point I wished I had my high school majorette’s baton in hand; then “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which is the best tune for making tears course down my cheeks while my feet mark time and I slap my knee to the four-four beat.
These national songs tug at my heart — it’s a physical as well as emotional sensation. The early years of my life, when I first learned these songs and they imprinted on my brain, are long gone, and now each tune simply serves up a platter like fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans and a small helping of cucumbers and onions in vinegar: anticipation, good will, sadness, pride, heartbreak, smiles . . . just an aural smorgasbord of compassion and patriotism. I can understand why armies use the same tunes over and over: they can rile up the troops to love and ferocity.
The Town and Country, sitting in their semi-circle in the gazebo of the town park in Churdan is pure America on the Fourth of July. I sit with my eyes closed, and the scene could be a memory from a band in Jefferson playing on the courthouse square when I was 8; or it could be a movie I saw once — “Back to the Future.” Or “Mayberry RFD.” Or it could be the sappy nostalgia of ascending age –“Ah, wasn’t life good in the faraway day?”
This is probably too much thinking about pure emotion. It was a perfect evening — soft breeze, huge-leafed maples swaying overhead, kids eating watermelon and playing on the swings, folks tapping their feet and clapping their hands and belting out “Glory, glory, hallelujah!” in the encroaching dusk.
But, the nostalgia doesn’t stop there.
I sold my house, to my delight, but now, everything is a nostalgic moment: Oh, will this be the last time I wash this windowsill? (I certainly hope so; why in the name of good sense am I nostalgic about this repetitive chore?) Will the new owners take care of the garden that I slave over each summer? Paint over the signatures on my bathroom wall (what I call sanctioned graffiti)? Look at the red maple and the linden arching over the street in front of my house? Listen to the poplar rustle in the backyard? And marvel as the sun shines on my neighbor’s upstairs window at sunset and refracts through my dining room window and down the hall to a print of a satyr dancing with a girl in a nightgown, with the caption, ‘Dance with a girl from Jefferson, Iowa’? I doubt I’ll find a place in my new house where this will happen.
A friend told me that giving up something, anything — a house, a husband, a view, a pet — leads to a period of paying attention, a form of “Be here now” that is almost impossible for us in western culture to figure out how to do in normal times. It is the loss, or the incipient loss, that puts us fully in the moment, appreciating what we’ve taken for granted for so long.
So, I am in pure appreciation. Of the Town and Country. And of my house. My garden, my street, my neighbors, my trees, my town. I’m in the clutches of nostalgia, listing from relief to tears, even as all I’m doing is selling a house, not divorcing my town. I’m fully in the moment of remembering things that happened or might not have happened or didn’t happen the way I recall them. It’s why nostalgia is so common, so endearing to us. And why Greene County seems to fit so well to so many of us returnees — it’s like Brigadoon, a tad of magic groomed by us to bygone days.
