Lately I have been thinking a lot about nostalgia. Perhaps it was sparked by watching the Royal Wedding and how vividly I remember the day of Princess Diana’s car accident. It was the day my nephew Dylan was born. My motions ran rampant. I did not know whether to be happy or sad. It was also the day of my grandfather Sam’s birthday, but he was born in 1897. Dylan begins college in the Fall. He’s will be attending Rollins College in Orlando, Florida. I love him and am very proud of him.
All these events remind me of the passage of time, but while observing this rapid passage of time, I question whether it is a good idea to focus on it. In other words, is nostalgia valuable or detrimental to our lives? Or should it be done in moderation?
According to The Oxford Dictionary, nostalgia is a “sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” I view this as a healthy desire, but others believe that too much nostalgia might be pathological. Thus, I decided to journal about my nostalgic sensibilities. I also did some personal research on the subject because I encourage many of my journaling students to write about their pasts and if I am directing them down a pathological path, I should probably know this and suggest other ideas. For example, one of my favorite prompts is to write about your first experience with a bicycle and my students tend to love this one.
In general, fiction, nonfiction and poetry writers are frequently writing about the past. We just cannot help ourselves. Does this mean we are pathological and need psychoanalysis? In fact, numerous magazines call for stories describing situations from our pasts. For example, Nostalgia Magazinehttp://www.nostalgiamagazine.net asks for first person stories that recapture the essence of life and memories we cherish from our younger days. The site talks about reliving “the days when teenage couples sipped milkshakes at the soda fountain, when families gathered around the radio for nightly entertainment, when men wore hats in public and ladies only wore dresses.”
They make nostalgia sound so positive, so why is it considered not healthy to think about our pasts?
For centuries a sense of nostalgia was considered a disease and a form of depression. Soldiers even feared it as homesickness, and thought it could kill them. Dr. Krystine Batcho, a psychology professor who studies nostalgia, has not found any signs that this nostalgia is a deadly disease. In fact, quite the opposite. She says, “It helps remind you who you are in reference to other people.” In fact, Dr. Batcho believes that a good use of nostalgia could be an effective coping mechanism. She adds: “You can’t go back and do it again, but you can relive it in memory. And that’s why I think nostalgia actually exists. To enable us to relive the good times.”
Having been struck with numerous losses and two cancers, I believe that reliving good times can be a critical tool for surviving bad times. Dr. Batcho says, “If right now everything is terrible and bleak, if you’re out of work and you can’t pay your mortgage and you’ve been evicted and you think, ‘there’s nowhere for me to turn,’ it is actually healthy to look to the past and to say, ‘What else have I survived before?’”
The quickest way to trigger nostalgic thoughts is by using the sense of smell and I find I do this frequently. For example, while working on my memoir, Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal (http://www.dianaraab.com/ReginasCloset/regina.html I took intermittent whiffs of my grandmother’s perfume bottle to get a sense of her. Also, when I use my favorite soap, I am reminded of my aunt’s house in New York where I spent many of my childhood weekends.
Studies have shown that those born before 1930 are more likely to remember the smells of nature, such as pine trees, hay, marsh, etc., and those born after 1950 are more likely to describe artificial smells, such as the smell of Crayola crayons and Play Doh.
Whatever you use to trigger your own nostalgia, you might be interested in knowing how nostalgic you really are. You can find out by taking the Nostalgia Inventory Test developed in 1995 by Dr. Krystne Batcho. (http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Batcho_Nostalgia_Inventory.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBody).
Let me know how you do. Personally, my results were interesting. I had always thought of my self as quite a nostalgic person, however I only scored 87 out of a possible 180, which makes me just average. In all honesty, I am happy with these results; I was never a person to like extremes!
PS. This blog was written a few days ago before the great news that Bin Laden was killed….I hope his demise provides some peace and closure for all the families of his victims.
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