Re nostalgia, I think the French emphasis on regret is rather negative. I prefer the Brazilian ( or Portugese) concept of Saudade, or the German word Sehnsucht. Both involve a certain yearning for a place or a person, but neither is associated with regret. (Although Goethe wrote a poem that roughly translates, 'He who knows yearning, knows how I suffer'. Nostalgia is another translation of Sehnsucht, but again, its power is in the poetic feelings one has about a time, not a neurotic wish to return to that time.
Oh, I loved this so much, especially your micro essays. Your photo and the description of your little self made me smile and threw me back to the days when I liked to do stuff like that. What is it about little girls trying too walk in these way too big high heels?
Your reflections on yourself and the passage of time were beautiful.
Nostalgia has multiple meanings for me. Mostly it is a healthy appreciation for the things in the past that have contributed to who I am in my present - as you write about here. Occasionally it's a mechanism for dealing with difficult moments that feel beyond my control - a retreat in my mind to a happier, less complicated time as a comfort and distraction. And sometimes it has those French connotations of looking back to a version of the past that didn't actually happen. Photographs have the power to do that, I believe. I have vivid 'memories' of past times that correlate to photographs taken at the time over which I've layered interpretation as memory. I have significantly older siblings whose actual memories differ from the ones I've created, using the photographic image to fill the gaps in my child self's memory. I'm a historian and find this fascinating. It makes me wonder how people remembered their pasts before photographs existed or were universally available.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment, Jan! It's interesting to feel all of these different shades of nostalgia. And yes, I've read about that capability of memory to construct itself. So fascinating! Photography must have really created a huge psychological shift in so many ways.
I really enjoyed this, and read the different approaches to the concept of nostalgia with interest. I have a fondness for nostalgia, too, though I can see how it can become dangerous and unhealthy (even weaponised, politically) for some. What I loved most about this was the clear appreciation and love when thinking about the past in such a healthy way. Not yearning to be there again (though we all have those pangs, now and then), but a reflective gratefulness for the person that you are now. That, to my mind, is the best type of nostalgia there is. Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading and commenting Lydia! That’s a very good point about how nostalgia can be politically weaponized. It seems like a matter of scale: personal vs collective. But one could feed into the other.
Re nostalgia, I think the French emphasis on regret is rather negative. I prefer the Brazilian ( or Portugese) concept of Saudade, or the German word Sehnsucht. Both involve a certain yearning for a place or a person, but neither is associated with regret. (Although Goethe wrote a poem that roughly translates, 'He who knows yearning, knows how I suffer'. Nostalgia is another translation of Sehnsucht, but again, its power is in the poetic feelings one has about a time, not a neurotic wish to return to that time.
This makes sense to me! I like "poetic feelings, not a neurotic wish to return." Thanks for the additional linguistic insight.
Oh, I loved this so much, especially your micro essays. Your photo and the description of your little self made me smile and threw me back to the days when I liked to do stuff like that. What is it about little girls trying too walk in these way too big high heels?
Your reflections on yourself and the passage of time were beautiful.
Thank you so much for sharing these with us!
Thank you for those kind words Susanne, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I really liked this varied post -- I saw your note wondering about the format, but it's nice when people mix things up.
Great, glad to hear that, thanks Betty!
Nostalgia has multiple meanings for me. Mostly it is a healthy appreciation for the things in the past that have contributed to who I am in my present - as you write about here. Occasionally it's a mechanism for dealing with difficult moments that feel beyond my control - a retreat in my mind to a happier, less complicated time as a comfort and distraction. And sometimes it has those French connotations of looking back to a version of the past that didn't actually happen. Photographs have the power to do that, I believe. I have vivid 'memories' of past times that correlate to photographs taken at the time over which I've layered interpretation as memory. I have significantly older siblings whose actual memories differ from the ones I've created, using the photographic image to fill the gaps in my child self's memory. I'm a historian and find this fascinating. It makes me wonder how people remembered their pasts before photographs existed or were universally available.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment, Jan! It's interesting to feel all of these different shades of nostalgia. And yes, I've read about that capability of memory to construct itself. So fascinating! Photography must have really created a huge psychological shift in so many ways.
I really enjoyed this, and read the different approaches to the concept of nostalgia with interest. I have a fondness for nostalgia, too, though I can see how it can become dangerous and unhealthy (even weaponised, politically) for some. What I loved most about this was the clear appreciation and love when thinking about the past in such a healthy way. Not yearning to be there again (though we all have those pangs, now and then), but a reflective gratefulness for the person that you are now. That, to my mind, is the best type of nostalgia there is. Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading and commenting Lydia! That’s a very good point about how nostalgia can be politically weaponized. It seems like a matter of scale: personal vs collective. But one could feed into the other.