Nostalgia is a funny thing. I find, as I age, it becomes funnier still, or perhaps curiouser and curiouser is a more apt phrase. With some regularity these days, my long-term memory tosses up random files from the Life Narrative Archives of my brain.
Of course, if we are honest with ourselves, Freud and I both know that this memory selection-process is not random at all. These moments of reverie are triggered by my present life looping back to my past in subtle but poignant ways. Sometimes, it’s the way sunlight slices through a room at a particular time of day; or the texture of a shirt I’ve dug out of my closet, that’s still wrinkled from its last wear; or the feel of a sandy wind blowing across my face, on a certain patch of beach, at high tide.