"Yes, the past happened, but it's over, isn't it?"
-- Patricia Whitman
My wife was updating her iPod with new songs so she could listen while she worked out the other day. "Hey, listen to this song I found," she said. "It's awesome."
The song came booming out from the speakers.
"Can't you see, whoa, can't you see
What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me
Can't you see, can't you see
What that woman, she been doin' to me."
Suddenly, I was transported back to Augusta, Ga., at the old armory building near downtown. It was April 1977 and 27-year-old Tom Watson had earlier in the month claimed victory at the 41st Masters Tournament just down the street on Washington Avenue. But all my attention that month had been the keen anticipation to see in person my favorite singing group at that time: The Marshall Tucker Band.
"Can't you see
(Gonna ride me a Southbound)
Can't you see
(All the way to Georgia Lord)
What that woman
(Till the train it run out of track)"
They did not disappoint, playing all their hits, then wisely closing their show with the latest single off their new album called "Heard It in a Love Song." I had not thought of that moment for more than 30 years until my wife's discovery of that song ignited a warm nostalgic glow.
Nostalgia itself has had a controversial history ever since the term was coined by a 17th century Swiss physician who ascribed soldiers' post-traumatic stress symptoms to their longing to return home -- nostos in Greek, and the connected pain, algos. Many doctors considered nostalgia as a sign of depression and a sign that the future looked gloomy, so you retreated to the past to a supposed happier, simpler time.
But new research by Constantine Sedikides of the University of Southampton has found that thinking about the past from time to time can actually make you feel good about yourself and your place in the world. His studies, as reported by John Tierney, have shown that nostalgia can counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. Couples feel closer and look happier when they're sharing nostalgic reminiscences.
"Nostalgia makes us a bit more human," said Sedikides.
He asserts nostalgia is not the same as homesickness. It's not just for those away from home, and it's not a sickness, despite its long historical reputation as a sign of melancholia which still lingers to this day.
Of course, some memories can be depressing or just plain repressed. Growing up in Florida, my mother kept us well fed with a steady supply of homegrown fruit and vegetables (sometimes I would eat 10 oranges in a row after school). Speaking with my sister last year, she began an observation with the words: "Remember how hungry we were all the time growing up?" Well, as James Wolcott once put it, everyone is entitled to their own nostalgia.
Some people, according to Sedikides, "have defined nostalgia as comparing the past with the present and saying, implicitly, that the past was better." When many people do this, they lose perspective on the times, forgetting that while the 1950s, for example, may seem like a golden time, for many people of color it was a time of great struggle and sacrifice. This is what Miuccia Prada had in mind when she observed "I'm attracted by nostalgia but I refuse it intellectually."
Music remains a gateway for most of us to the past, in part, because the songs allow our brain a good marker to hang memories onto. Some people steadfastly refuse to listen to any new music out of their era. Well, to quote that great musician-philosopher Frank Zappa: "It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Albert Camus described nostalgia as an appeal for innocence that he described as the essence of being. I thought of that recently when my wife overheard a elderly lady reminiscing about her work as a teacher abroad many years ago, teaching in such places as Vietnam and South Korea. After recapping some of her trials and triumphs, she wisely summed up her current situation living in an assisted-living home with these succinct words: "You know, where I live, you do not see too many people smiling. I can't tell you how important your smile is to me today."
Now there is a memory to not only savor but pass on with your own smile this week.
Happy Easter!
Commentary on 04/17/2014