Nostalgia

"That Easter Day with joy was bright", and it certainly was! Sunny and warm, the last of the snow melting away, ice-out on the pond, and my two favorite men (husband Hunt and son Dylan), sharing a mid-afternoon lunch of hot dogs on the grill, iced-tea-lemonade (aka Arnold Palmers), and apple cake. Not a traditional Easter dinner! Not a ham or hard-boiled egg in sight. No hymns, no lilies. But a beautiful day, with a walk around the woodsy land, and the delight of discovering the first blooming flowers planted in the fall- a crocus over the septic tank!

It's only been recently that I haven't felt the need to re-enact the Easters of my childhood by dressing up (always new clothes!), going to church, singing the hymns, dying the eggs. I would have strong ideas about how to achieve the special feeling of the day, and would need to go through the motions, even as my personal outlook changed and moved away from a sin-and-salvation-based view.

I would go through these motions and yet, something was never quite right. It felt like play-acting, but the real thing was missing. I began to understand that the source of those feelings, those yearnings for sights, sounds and smells long-passed, was nostalgia.
And here I go to Google (get used to it, I'm an inveterate looker-upper) for a definition of nostalgia.
The Merriam-Webster definition is interesting:
"1: the state of being homesick
a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition."
Then there's good old Wikipedia:
"The term nosalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form."



What was I yearning for, with my dyed eggs and Easter dress? My re-enacting was played out in so many other ways throughout my young-into-middle-adulthood. I often confused nostalgia with a true inner aspiration. I clung to rituals, habits, even jobs and people, yearning for something yet seldom completely satisfied at the result. Why not? What was I wishing for?
he most obvious answer is that I sought a return to the security of my past- I have vivid memories of Easter as a child, my pleasure in a new pretty dress, my delight at the Easter basket and its contents, and the full-sensory pleasure of the Episcopal Easter service at church- the mingled smell of lilies and incense, the triumphant sounds of the organ and joyful hymns, and the tingly feeling of this special day. The annual predictability of Easter and other holidays gave security in a childhood that was unsettled by frequent moves, lack of self-confidence, and a vague uncertainty as to my place at school and in the world.

But security can't be re-created, it must be built brick by brick, and comes from within. Creating the perfect holiday dinner won't bring back the sense of safety and love I felt as a child, nor will the clothes, the lilies or the candy. My sense of security must be built upon my knowledge of my own competence and worth as a human, and the safety I feel with those I choose to be with.
At this point in my very bumpy journey of life, I feel completely secure now in my skin, as the person I am becoming, in my house with my husband, and secure in the relationships I have with my children, friends and family. This is more valuable than any re-enacted ritual, and more lasting (later I'll muse on the value of ritual; I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water!).

But there's more to nostalgia, that idealized yearning. The remembrance and longing for things past can also point to a deeper desire. Not only do we need to feel secure, we need to feel connected to those we love and beyond them, to the Whole. Whether we use the term God, Goddess, Universe, or no term at all, we humans have a longing for connection to It, and thus to each other. Throughout the year and throughout our lives we develop habits that become rituals, most if not all of them pointing to our desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Feelings such as nostalgia are signs of that desire. For some partaking in familiar rituals- church, patriotic events, school ceremonies, arts or even sporting events, helps us feel connected to a greater whole. For me, increasingly, it's participation in every moment of every day life- living as fully in the present as I can, being mindful of the beauty of a crocus, the touch of the piano keys, the pleasure of the company of my family.