the late night ramblings

disclaimer: this post is way too long and way too ridiculous. don't feel pressured to read.


Nostalgia is a seductive liar. ~George Wildman Ball
Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. ~Doug Larson
Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!
~Owens Lee Pomeroy
Everything can be killed except nostalgia for the kingdom, we carry it in the color of our eyes, in every love affair, in everything that deeply torments and unties and tricks.
-julio cortazar

I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.
-van morrison

I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis.
-mira nair

in case it's unclear how i feel tonight, i feel homesick and nostalgic. it all started with my mumford and sons pandora station. you know how sometimes pandora or shuffle on the ipod seems to read your mood and keep playing those songs you love most? tonight as i was washing my face, pandora kept spitting out music i fell in love with when i lived in hawaii. band of horses, coldplay, and glen hansard.

when i lived there, it was like my all emotions were heightened. as i have mentioned before, that island helped me heal from many things that i struggled with. that music played an enormous role in the healing. sometimes i wish i could write those artists and thank them for writing the words i so needed to hear, but i'm sure they receive letters like that on a daily basis.

ever since i was a little girl, i have wanted to go back to "the before." the summer of 5th grade was especially great, and after it ended, i would daydream about those great days. i used to commit certain moments to memory and then go through all the moments over and over, so afraid i would forget the happiness. i guess i really struggle with letting go of good things.

so tonight i have been thinking about all the wonderful events in my life. i remember my first year of college, moving into an apartment filled with half naked gymnasts and football players, playing poker and dani california blasting from their stereo. those muscly girls hauled all my boxes of pots, pans, bedding, and even furniture up three flights of stairs and were welcoming, coarse language and all.

the first meal i cooked after moving out was spaghetti and meatballs, those terrible costco meatballs that you can literally warm up in the microwave. my roomates were impressed. and then i drove home that weekend, a mere four days later. i was speeding and got pulled over. totally pulled the "it's my first time away from home officer; i just miss my parents so much." line and didn't get a ticket. i was going at least 95.

i remember my first love leaving on an LDS mission, and just knowing i couldn't live without him. i saved his all voicemails on my phone, and late at night when sleep wouldn't come, i would listen to them over and over, sobbing. that first love was so sweet, such teenage puppy love, staying out till 4 every morning to go train watching, talking about nothing, and listening to brand new or bayside's acoustic cd. after he left, i couldn't listen to music for a long time.

i remember every time i would come home for a weekend, my three brothers running to the door to hug me. they seemed to grow so much those three years i was gone. it meant the world to me, their excitement. thinking about it now makes me cry. i love those boys so much.

then of course there was the year i spent living in hawaii. that first house, three miles from school, and that purple beach cruiser i borrowed from the tongans sharing our duplex. the first time i met erika dick, i knew we would be friends. she talked a hundred miles an hour while she hung up her colorful clothes in the closet we shared. our toenails were painted the same orange and we laughed about that. she had tegan and sara playing in the background on her laptop.

i remember riding my beach cruiser to the grocery store, tamuras, and smelling fish and mildew. the big brown woman who taught me about pineapples as i was picking one. i remember hitchhiking for the first time, asking the man if he planned on raping me before i would get in his car. we always took our books to the beach and pretended to study. i still have scars on my knees from the mosquito bites i got while talking to travis on the phone outside. we didn't get phone service in the house. he used to stay up late and talk to me, while i paced the beach park across the street from the house. it was usually raining.

obviously i am homesick. it's late and the iron and wine isn't helping at all. i guess the point of all this rambling, is that sometimes i feel like i'm bursting with all these memories that make me who i am. and i look at travis and wonder if he ever feels that way and if i could ever know all the memories that make him, him. and if it even matters. but it seems like it does. do you know what i'm trying to say here? do you ever feel so full of memories and so homesick for those times that you can't stand it almost? not in a sad feeling way exactly, but a filled kind of way?

there's an ingrid michaelson song that goes,

they say that home is where the heart is

i guess i haven't found my home
and we keep driving round in circles
afraid to call this place our own.
and are we there yet?

i really like the way maya angelou put it and i will leave this ridiculous post at this:

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.