I reminisce about the days of old
I've been thinking about the concept of memory, especially after recently interviewing an artist whose work deals with nostalgia and memory. He describes fond memories as "siren's songs," in light of their allure and ultimate inaccessibility. That's an especially apt description. While walks down memory lane are often irresistible, they can also lead to a certain dissatisfaction, and they're always bittersweet.
On my drive from the office to home at lunch, I looked over to see that Counting Crows' Recovering the Satellites had slipped out of my overlarge CD case and was sitting on the seat, so I popped it in. This album is like a direct conduit for my year in 7th grade, which now exists somewhere on the other side of a wormhole. Middle school was not particularly kind to me, in fact, I'm pretty sure it sucked, but for some reason I am strongly nostalgic for the early-to-mid '90s. As I listened to the lyrics of "Daylight Fading," I started to wonder how much of my perception of language is directly related to the associations I unconsciously made with the words in songs: singing "Goodbye to you/goodbye to all my friends/goodbye to everyone I know" in my seafoam-green bedroom after an alienating day at school.
I'm getting a little heady here, but it's a strange thing to be reminded of a fairly crappy time--whether by music, movies, art, photographs, your old diary, whatever--and have unfounded romantic associations with it. The way we reinterpret our experiences and "write" our memories is a process much more complicated than I'll ever understand, but I know I always manage to give my story a great soundtrack.
OK, I've got to go hit the bowl before it's time to go back to the office.
April
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