That bittersweet longing.

Write on nostalgia. Something nice, I was advised.   Don’t know whether it should be nice or nicely written. Let me put things in the way I can. I don’t know if ‘nostalgia’ can be nice. It has this bittersweet longing for things, persons or may be some times we have cherished in the past.

There are moments when we have eyes and moments when we are blind. There are things we pass by on our way to work or school.  There are buildings we don’t notice today, but yesterday we saw them staring at us.  Things change. Time hops. All so very random. It is random that we are made to forget some things. But some things we don’t.  Even if we want to carefully forget them.

We sit and browse through Facebook and Twitter to see what we have possibly missed a few minutes or an hour ago. And then scroll through past baby pictures, college times, prom shots, graduations, trips we have been on, people we have met and those we have never met, but know. Below most of the photos there is the hashtag, #throwback.

We think of days sitting in our favorite outfit with fellow college freshmen. We talk of our school days and recollect the tours we had. We remember the day that the rambutan tree at the edge of the garden was full of fruits. We remember the day when the first leaves popped out from a mango seed. We remember well the day that the moon was so white, bright and perfectly round and the days when its light crept through windows and took away that dead blackness while we are asleep. We carefully remember moments of heart blending, a finger that touched the skin, lip to lip moments, comforting words that defied distance, days of quiver and sigh, days of discomfort and nights that were too long to even think there will be a dawn. We won’t forget that one morning when wathusuddha, jambu and the huge kos tree opposite the road were glowing under the morning sun. We won’t forget those days when it rained in our hearts and times when eyes were wet. We call back moments when heroes left us and giants fell off. Or the days when loving and the loved ones left.

There are moments you reminisce the first day of flying a kite and losing it. 

We remember fleeting emotions, feelings and moments of glee.  We put ourselves into an era or a specific frame. We even place inanimate objects, smells and places. We lock away bits of ourselves into things and beings. Being nostalgic is fine, as long as we aren’t deeply hurt.

There is a bend we can’t make. We still wish we had those once-upon-a-time carnival rides. We wish we could go on a date again with the man/woman we have once had.

Courtesy - "The Nation" , 13th December 2014