Has it really been a week since I last blogged? Scary. I've had one of those weeks where at the end of the day I can't tell you what I did at the beginning. Everything is blending together in a frightening combination of literary theory, the Pub, work meetings, interviews, and just a little bit of Houdini for good measure.
So, thoughts of the past week, in no particular order.
Nostaligia is like Charybdis in The Odyssey--a deep, black, swirling whirlpool that pulls you in and then spits you out, broken and wasted. I've never been one for memory lane. If I could, I'd put up a DETOUR sign in my head to keep me far far away. This week has been particularly bad. I've been reading Doctorow's Ragtime for one of my lit classes. I decided to pull out the soundtrack for the Broadway musical, even though they don't have much in common. But somewhere in the past four years I forgot that Ragtime was the top choir's big number my senior year of high school. I wasn't in choir that year, but I went to the concert to see my best friends and my kind-of boyfriend, who later became Boyfriend #1. Listening to the music has brought back a good month and a half of people singing "Sarah Brown Eyes" to me, but changing the lyrics to "Sarah, blue eyes." And BF1 singing the Henry Ford solo and ranting about the minor lyric changes made so as not to offend the conservative parental audience. In a way I feel as if I've had ghosts following me around.
That was a lot, but one more thought. Maybe two. I've been thinking about art and Mormonism and how the two inform each other in my writing and wondering how it works for visual artists. This is definitely something I want april to pursue.
Last thought. Promise. I was talking to my dad about how the decisions I make in the next month or two will affect the rest of my life. Is anyone else scared witless by this idea? Chime in. We'll start a support group.
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3 comments:
On transitions, I vote: scared into apathy. Tonight my dad asked me where I wanted to move to after I graduate in April. I said that I didn't know... For all intents and purposes, I could spin a globe and plop my finger down anywhere -- I don't have many ties to anywhere that I particularly want to be. And this is being a grown up.
On rememberese, I vote: depends on the memory. Some are fun to savor. Others give me physical pain. True I wouldn't change my past; however, I would still choose not to remember some of the hurt with quite as much poignancy as I am prone to do.
On staying up too late fiddling with my computer I vote: I'm going to sleep now! Bah!
such suberbulous commenting. I am pleased. I think i am in the same boat as HMP with the whole nostalgia thing. I love diving into old memories, often just as a way of renewing my gratitude towards H.F. Even the bad memories give me pleasure when i realize how far i have come from them...but i guess that all depends on how far back you cast your mind. Scared into apathy is also a fabulous way of describing lots of things.
Now that this thread has been approved by the venerable AA. . . I think I tend to dwell more than most people. I also tend to avoid the past more than most people. I hate get togethers with high school friends. I'm always terrified that I'll run into someone and be required to act like nothing has changed, when it has. As for appreciating past events, I think I do. I'm grateful for them and the changes they've created in my life. At the same time, I don't like reliving them. And this comment is going absolutely nowhere.
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