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The Nature of Nostalgia
© Catherine Tammaro 2007
Have you ever wondered as I have, what happens to time? You seem to be here, now in a moment and then a delicious passionate
memory comes and sweeps you into another season, like a thick, heavy wave; a sunny day in my California childhood, a bee sting
~ water's reflection off swimming pool edge; chlorine on wet concrete. Naked dry foothills and fossil hunting childhood glee
~ ocean memories....
Driving along Ohio Pettibone country Road on a hot black night, gravel pinging off red gremlin sides... a sentimental
tear shed as droplets in the primal pool are allowed up to the surface, then subsumed into the whole of the lake of memory
Time bends and is moving and then gone. Instant recollection! Flashes of half-seconds, motes of moments, then into yet
another place and
time. Time opens you ~ I remember, a cab somewhere in London, cool/warm spring winds, looking up through fractured rectangular
reflections, soft blue sky, rosy English light, then into a warm Western Reserve day, May 1970. Kent State. Politics and riots,
folk heroes and assassinations/jump cut to Chagrin Falls, October woods, pheasants and leaf litter. The happiness of time
dissappeared!
Time is (now I'm knowledge} time is before you then behind. Summers away by the scrubby marsh lake, loonsound, rainstorm's
silver droplets ricochet off the bodymind and I'm IN the water. Fish and gleaming in wet currents; stones of memory under
the surface.
Kissing moss and algae ~ Waves touching skin shoreline. Looking out across the water and a long journey in a windy red
canoe. Ashoka Bicycle wheels, spokes spinning; black birds in a blue sky, Peaceful decent into depth-charged dreams and remembrances.
Its in the trees, its coming!
One morning I awoke and it was almost 53 years ago...through all of my many nights and days of remembering. Through millions
of friends and high wire disco dances; clandestine clubs and boys and girls ~ my citynight winter Toronto song~ midnight skyscapes
and young romantic thoughts. Music and painting until early morning.
Love comes and goes; death and birth. Sickness and reincarnation, damnation; reconciliation and resurrection. You can't
remember a whole life in one day. You can't remember a whole day in one lifetime. How does that work? As soon as my head hits
the pillow I'm gone into dreamland.... off to another place and time. Time was and still is moving, to and away from me and
you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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