What I Wish I Could Do
I got a sad and desperate pang this morning when my innermost core - the thing that's probably going to direct the course of my senility someday - nearly pushed me out the door to run down the block to Truffles and grab a coffee and pastry.
Nevermind the fact that Truffles is 542.6 miles away.
More troubling is the fact that it was 6 residences ago.
Why is it that those of us cursed with the wanderlust sometimes get poked with these strange, jet-lagged reminders of old habits? When it happened I felt helpless and bewildered - if I went out the door and made the same number of steps and turns that it would have taken me to get to the coffee shop from my old residence on Lake Avenue, I would probably end up a pedestrian road pizza in the middle of Highway 35 - splattered all over the road with a look on my face like an escapee from an old folks' home, $1.25 in change in my now-flattened hand.
Does it mean that Lake Avenue was my ideal situation, my favorite place, and in the six years after, I haven't found anything quite as good? Am I going to start in with Lake Avenue stories now, like my dad would start in with the Buffalo stories - the ones that made my mom roll her eyes and leave the room? Maybe I should try and remind myself how the plumbing never quite worked, how caged in I felt at the end, living in a one-room apartment, how that guy with the birds moved in below me and I had to endure the all-night squawkfests.
I'm never quite sure how I feel about nostalgia. Is it my undoing, or just a harmless, pleasant reminder of good times? And why is the one thing I get nostalgic about the same thing that (to the outsider looking in) I seem to be running from?
I don't actually have time to answer these questions. I have to go to work and answer questions like "Why don't you have Publication 17 yet?" and "Can you get me the 1-800 number for the Republican National Committee?"
C'est la vie de la bibliographe.
Nevermind the fact that Truffles is 542.6 miles away.
More troubling is the fact that it was 6 residences ago.
Why is it that those of us cursed with the wanderlust sometimes get poked with these strange, jet-lagged reminders of old habits? When it happened I felt helpless and bewildered - if I went out the door and made the same number of steps and turns that it would have taken me to get to the coffee shop from my old residence on Lake Avenue, I would probably end up a pedestrian road pizza in the middle of Highway 35 - splattered all over the road with a look on my face like an escapee from an old folks' home, $1.25 in change in my now-flattened hand.
Does it mean that Lake Avenue was my ideal situation, my favorite place, and in the six years after, I haven't found anything quite as good? Am I going to start in with Lake Avenue stories now, like my dad would start in with the Buffalo stories - the ones that made my mom roll her eyes and leave the room? Maybe I should try and remind myself how the plumbing never quite worked, how caged in I felt at the end, living in a one-room apartment, how that guy with the birds moved in below me and I had to endure the all-night squawkfests.
I'm never quite sure how I feel about nostalgia. Is it my undoing, or just a harmless, pleasant reminder of good times? And why is the one thing I get nostalgic about the same thing that (to the outsider looking in) I seem to be running from?
I don't actually have time to answer these questions. I have to go to work and answer questions like "Why don't you have Publication 17 yet?" and "Can you get me the 1-800 number for the Republican National Committee?"
C'est la vie de la bibliographe.
posted by Christine Borne at 7:32 AM
2 Comments:
Part of the baggage of migratory people is the mysterious drive to return. (Inner Golden Retriever)I have wanted to Poloroid my every residence just because I have to be there because I was there before. Go there and you'll find that you have no place there anymore.
This happens. It took me a while to get over leaving Slavic Village (69th and Union...not too far away from Harvard!) for "Little Siberia" (a.k.a. Ashtabula County). This is a bit of what drove me over the edge when I was the solo cataloger (woo-hoo! That last a whole entire week) at Cambria County Library in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania (Johnstown, that is) too. Frankly the area was not too friendly for a single young guy like me trying to relocate. When even the local congregation declared me persona non grata I decided it was time to flee to somewhere a little bit safer until I got things better together.
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