I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.  – Robert Wyatt

Tina is hosting this week, and she wants us to be Nostalgic. This is a feeling that easily comes to me, touches me, just like tears do. Nostalgia is such a unique phenomenon because it fuses both positive and negative experiences and emotions.

The word nostalgia is a Greek compound, meaning ”homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ”pain” or ”ache”, and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Today its meaning is a bit different. So, my Nostalgic will be entirely about my own life.

I don’t have any digital photos of my grandmother, but my childhood was so much about her. My nostalgic memories always take me to her garden and the flowering apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, plum trees and …her sweet voice and contagious laughter.

I always make a distinction between nostalgia and sentimentality. Nostalgia is genuine – you mourn things that actually happened.  – Pete Hamill

After my grandmother, my first Lagotto, Mille, evokes my nostalgic memories. He was such an impressive dog who hit all your senses already in the first blow. You did not stand a chance. He will be forever remembered by everyone who met him.

Can you feel nostalgic about one single flower? I can! Many years ago I had a fantastic favorite orchid – a Cattleya hybrid, ”Tropical Pointer”. I had it for several years and it came back again and again with a multitude of flowers. I think of it as a He – don’t know why.  He just flowered himself to death (if you can say it that way…). And like everything else in this world, you can never get the same thing twice. I kept searching for a new Tropical Pointer, in every garden center, in every country I visited, but new hybrids come every year – and the old ones are forgotten…

Nostalgia is a very human trait.  – Stephanie Coontz

My beloved apple tree – a bit of a warden tree for this house (about 100 years old). Nostalgia hits me when looking at it in its former glory. You who follow my blog know it is the same tree (but lying down, 2019) in the Creepy post.

Finally, we had some foreign guests in town when the children played in different orchestras, some 15 years ago.  A big meeting with other European countries brought a couple of young guys our way. They stayed at our house for some nights while the festivities lasted. This young man was an avid accordion player – every time I look at the photo, I can feel his love for music and for his instrument warming my heart.

In the header, one of the very few photos of my whole family together. Nostalgia over all those years we still traveled together, and how excited we were over reaching our dream – Tibet.

 

Thank you, Tina, for hosting this week instead of me! And, as always, Amy, Tina, Patti and I thank you for your continued support of our photo challenge.