8-NOSTALGIA

I close my eyes sometimes and I remember I am eight, I can tap into the feelings. My thoughts and the dresses I liked wearing. Music is usually the portal or sensory windows, I sometimes remember scent.

For example, I remember the scent of my after school tutor. I barely remember her face, the memory of her voice is also faint but I can almost be certain that I will know her smell anywhere. Maybe I just have a thing for smell who knows…

I came across a word “fernweh” which means a longing for a place one has never been almost akin to a sickness. What do you call a longing for a place you have been before but can never visit again?

Nostalgia is an embodiment of people, places, and time.

I remember returning home from school one sunny afternoon to our belongings out in the courtyard. I spent the earlier part of my childhood in a sort of shared apartment with other families. So my first thought was if we were in the process of being robbed (I think I have always had an active imagination), turns out my parents were trying to fumigate the apartment.

The most interesting part was when I saw that there was a cake box seated on a dressed table. It was from Sweet sensations, a popular eatery back in my childhood days with the inscription “Happy birthday Dara, sweet sensations wishes you”. The cake was designed in a baby pink colour with a lemon green ribbon. I remember that I wore a lemon green dress and my favourite black sandal that year and posed for a picture. As I type this, the image is as vivid as yesterday.

I do not know what makes the memory stand out especially when I think of birthdays, maybe it is because it was so unexpected and the setting seemed like my parents made space to accommodate my joy despite all they had going on.

I remember singing along to Westlife, ‘an empty street, an empty house, a hole inside my heart…’ with the passion of one who may have been through a breakup. I remember dancing to Brandy’s “Aphrodisiacs” trust me, I had no idea what the content of the song meant but I think that was when I found my fascination for words.

I remember the eve of my first debate. we had moved to our property at this time. My dad woke me up some hours before dawn for a rehearsal, he taught me how to make my introduction and how to articulate my words and arguments. It is a vivid memory for me because this was the first and only time my dad did this but the memory stayed for that debate and every other one that came after with trophies to show. I usually scored points from my opening statement. This memory is special because I think it laid the foundation for my articulation.

I remember going to the beach as a child and holding on to my father’s trousers while I just dipped my feet in the water and ran back as fast as the waves came crashing. The many memories of my mom’s Christmas rice in red coolers, and my signature hairstyle called “telephone wire”. I remember the first time I laid my eyes on my baby pictures and thought, wow, how could I have been that cute. I remember my mom saying to me ‘When I gave birth to you, I kept staring at you in wonder.’

I remember my first day of class in a new school. How I was bald. What a way to show up! Trust me the back story is even funnier. In an effort to perm my hair, I put some hair straightening creme called relaxer. There was nothing relaxed about how my hair kept falling off strand by strand till it was just the middle left. my dad advised me to shave it with the subtle threat that if I didn’t I may end up never growing any hair again.

I expected the laughter but I still showed up with sass. It is not like I had a choice. My father would have never allowed me to cower in shame because of vanity. I remember having a crush on my seatmate but we kept fighting that our class teacher had to find us other seatmates. My teacher used to sing us a song that had both of our names in it. Fast forward to some time in the future past, I was doing my bachelor’s and decided to reach out to this guy, yes, he sounded so mature and all grown, I dropped the call and never phoned back. I am smiling fondly at this memory.

I remember waking up one night to the threat of armed robbers. No, they were not robbing my apartment directly but they were in the neighbourhood, an alert went out and the occupants came out en mass to intimidate the robbers and call for help from security agents. I remember standing in my pee-soaked nightie and watching the adults whisper aggressively about the action plan that must be taken to make this stop. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Another word I like is “Saudade” it is portugese and means melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a person, a place, or a thing that is far away from you. a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy

Did I tell you of the time I was chased by a snake? This story is surreal even to me but I know that it could not have been a conjecture of my imagination because that was the first time I thought, “You can actually die today Dara.” Why this story seems unbelievable even to me is because of how long the chase lasted. For at least 30 minutes, I kept running from school, looking back and seeing this snake trained on me with the determination of an assailant.

All I remember is banging on the gate to my house with a loud voice and I watched the snake slide under the gate into the compound, I just ran inside and pretended that I lived through a nightmare. I never told anybody because I also doubted this event or maybe my mind refused to process it but I know it happened like I know my name but I don’t think I want to remember because it does not add up.

First, why should a snake chase me? second, what if it was just random coincidence that the snake was going in my direction? What if the snake just wanted to be friends? okay now I am being dramatic but these were the questions running through my mind that made me not voice out this experience because it sounded incredulous to even my mind.

Recently, I experienced nostalgia but from the perspective of a man who had to visit his past rehearsal room from the days when he was part of a band. Now he is much more different, he has chosen an elitist career built on diplomacy, he is a far cry from the carefree man who strummed guitar to loud music and composed songs about midwinter, flowers and dust.

He said to me, I don’t smoke anymore but now that I am in this room, I will smoke once more. I will probably never be in this room again. I came to say goodbye. He never found the guitar he travelled to collect but maybe he found acceptance for how differently his future self showed up.

As I watched in rhapsody, I was consumed by the epiphany of time. It made me think of all the times we hang on to what was because what is to come is too unfamiliar.

The beautiful thing I love about memories is at the moment of their making we are ignorant of their profundity. The interesting about nostalgia is we have to leave to experience it.

There is no way to end a tale like this than abruptly.

Goodbye.