I was going through a box of paperwork today; part of the ongoing process of getting "all the junk" out of the closets in my home office work space.
Some of the stuff in the folders, in the boxes... well, it has been there, for a while.
The curtains in our living room, near sunset. The double focus of the lamp reminds me of the soft filtering of old memories — sharp and fuzzy, at the same time...
Among other things, I came across a bunch of typewritten documents from the 1970's and 1980's.
Typewritten...
I found myself drifting sideways on a wave of nostalgia... remembering the sound of my mother tapping away at her old Royal portable typewriter. She was an avid letter writer, keeping up correspondences with dozens of people around the world.
I found myself remembering the sound of the typewriters in the office where my father worked until I was about 13. Big, heavy, industrial grade IBM Selectrics. They weighed about 50lbs! I'm not kidding...
Interesting to think how our grandkids — the oldest almost a teenager now — will never know the sound of a typewriter, except maybe from watching an old movie.
It's funny how we humans tend to wax nostalgic for things lost to the past. Now we have the amazing technology of computers and smartphones, and yet you can go online and find literally hundreds of font sets that emulate the script created by old typewriters.
My mother's Royal always placed the lowercase "e" too close to the next letter because the striker arm for that letter had once been bent slightly from a jam.
We often think about photos and experiences when we go into reveries through the past, but certain sounds and smells can also be extremely powerful triggers to send our minds drifting.
The sound of the typewriter is one, for me...
When we are in reverie, our eyes focus inwards...
Another is the sound and "feel" of dialing a rotary telephone.
It's funny what we remember. I can't remember five items to pick up from the supermarket, but I can remember at least ten phone numbers from my childhood!
Mrs. Denmarkguy periodically observes that our home smells a lot like my auntie's house where I spent so much of my childhood and youth. Makes me wonder whether families have habits and life preferences that recreate what feels familiar, in some way.
The past is a funny and wondrous thing, all at the same time.
We can leaf through the endless "file folders" in our minds and travel back to various moments in ways that occasionally feel incredibly vivid and real and fresh.
But we can never go back.
I remember how — after my mother passed away, a little over a decade ago — I returned to some of the places of my teenage years around where my parents lived out there final years... knowing that it would likely be the last time I ever set foot there again.
The places were definitely still there, and still the same (as things in Europe often are), but the 15-year old boy who experienced them was long gone; a poignant reminder of the way our memories actually tend to be feelings rather than places and events.
And so, I left those places behind, at peace with the knowledge that they were precisely where they belonged: In a (now) foreign country, in a location I would likely never pass again.
"Time traveling" doesn't work... no matter how much we wish it would.
I try not to live too much in the past... which is actually relatively easy because I didn't have much in the way of "GOOD old days." But the past still informs the present in unmistakable ways. And there's a certain comfort in that...
I have much gratitude for this thing we call life! The Universe willing, I still have another 20 years on this planet... and I expect I will get to see some amazing things!
As always, thanks for reading and have a great week!
How about YOU? Do you have any particularly strong memories you drift back to, sometimes? Or do you spend more time dreaming about the FUTURE? When looking back, do you remember the way you FELT, or the actual PLACES/EVENTS? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210822 19:16 PDT
0324/1567