Nostalgia

Currently I’m on one of my stints where I listen to Denison Witmer (introduced to me by Kaci Jo) constantly. This most likely was brought on by the book I’m currently reading, Journey of Desire by John Eldredge. The correlation her is that Denison writes a lot of songs about memories from his past relationships and at the beginning of the Journey of Desire John writes about echoes from our past. He writes “sometimes these moments go unrecognized as they unfold, but their secret comes to us years later in our longing to relive them.” Denison has one song, You and Me, that really captures for me those moments when out of the blue you are reminded of one of those past moments.

You would not believe how this came up
Two apartments ago in downtown
A picture of you sleeping in my chair

I sang songs to you because I cared...

…There’s a little section of my town
That reminds me of the place you live
Cherry blossoms blow out of the trees
I get lost but I now that I’ve seen
Denison Witmer – You and Me

For me this happens every once in awhile, but I’m always surprised by the object or place or smell that will trigger it. For example a couple of weeks ago I was reading in my apartment when a light breeze came in through the window…the smell reminded me of my old girlfriend’s house. Suddenly I’m sitting on her couch watching Rocky and playing footsie. What I find fascinating is that in those brief moments two distinctly different emotions hit me…joy and sorrow. The first gut reaction is joy because that was a happy memory filled with joy and love, but then the sorrow sets in because I know how that story ends. Then after the momentary flood of emotion I tend to be left with a pleasant feeling because I really do look back on those times glad they happened.

An interesting side topic is how the memory can replace the actual person or event. C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed about his fear that the memory of his recently deceased wife would replace the actual person. He states that once he caught himself saying “H. [his wife] wouldn’t have liked that.” Even if he was her husband he has no right to state what she would have done in that situation then lord it over her other loved ones. While this is slightly off topic I do feel it relates because it seems to me that those types of memories over time change from a real life event into some type of illusion (for lack of a better term).

Now shifting my focus back to that instance of sorrow that comes out of the blue on the heals of joy. The real irony about that situation is if we look at the complete opposite situation, someone reminiscing about a past trial. For me I think back to my first two weeks in Memphis working at the LCC. In those two weeks I worked on average 16 hours a day, got caught on fire, didn’t have time to purchase a meal the first week so I ate a bag of chips for lunch and a bag for dinner, and had no guarantee of future pay from this work. Even though I hated almost every minute of those two weeks, now I recall those stories with a smile on my face and almost wish that others could go through the experience. So this brings up the question of why do we look back on some joyful moments with sorrow and some painful times with joy?

I think the answer to both of these questions is hope. When thinking about the bad times you recall them with the knowledge that you made it through and are a better person for it. This fills one with hope that when other trials of comparable magnitude rise up against them they will be able to overcome the trial based on past experience. On the other hand as I’ve said the sorrow that one feels when remembering a past love is the result of the knowledge of how the story ends. You recall that joy knowing that it doesn’t have a happy ending and that that moment will never be experienced again…there is no hope in that. When I began writing this entry I had no intention of writing about hope, but I suppose I should have seen it coming. As a Christian I know that hope is the central theme of our lifes…we live in a fallen world but have a hope founded in the resurrection of Christ for a happy ending to this story. “…we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:3-5)