nostalgia. It is inevitable. These seasons past, good and bad, are the ones
that flash before our eyes as we slowly drown in the annual advertising
blitzkrieg. The nostalgia infiltrates, expanding from the season specific to
all remembrances imprinted. And so I pay homage to the season, serve my time in obligatory reminiscence.
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so mysterious in the flickering shadows of the Christmas tree lights; the
unbearable excitement of Christmas Eve; the sucker punch loss of innocence
when Santa was condescendingly revealed as a pathetic fraud. I remember
climbing behind the Christmas tree to find that one smooth and shiny red
Christmas bulb hanging from the lowest branch, with a single light reflected.
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for hours. This memory leads me down the hall to my childhood closet cubby
hideaway – dark, secret, filled with cushions and books, shared only with my
most special and trusted stuffed animal, Ralphie. This then evokes memories
of Archie, my pet rock that I honestly loved (before there was the “pet rock”
spurt); and leaps onward to make believe games; roller skating; my mountain
adventures; and to the preteen Friday nights of comic books, Circle K
Freezees, potato chips, and beef jerky.
The things about which I am most nostalgic however, are books. I remember
every book ever received or given as a present, every find at a bookstore, a
library sale. I remember when I got the greatest, most miraculous present of
my entire childhood – a huge box that came in the mail, filled with books,
all the classics. They were brand new. I still recall the smell, opening
each one, feeling the smooth virgin pages, inhaling them, the excitement of
knowing all those worlds were waiting just for me.
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exacted of runaways. I grieve those books still. I’ve begun recreating that
little library of my youth, looking for books that appear to be the same as
those I had Once Upon a Time. I’ve been able to find some with the old
glossy, smooth picture pages, and cloth binding. And yes, I still snort
them, mostly unabashedly, right from the middle crease, the magic to come
wafting through my olfactory senses first. I won’t buy a book without
smelling it first. And they do have different smells. Avoid the faint sour
ones; revel in the fresh and pungent; don’t give up on the musty, moldy, dank
ones – sometimes they hold the finest of treasures and hidden secrets – and
only occasionally a weird creepy-crawly.
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too much, treating them almost as talismans. But they were my very first,
and will likely be my very last, true love. They are something that’s all
mine, comprised of infinite wonder, possibility, and magic. I made these
things and the people who wrote them, become life, bigger than life,
impossibly romanticized. Holy shit! No wonder I had writer’s block!
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time I discover a new author, open a new book, re-open an old one. But now
I’m learning to live with them in my world; not live – hide away – exclusively in theirs. They enrich my world with infinite possibility. They mustn’t replace this world. One needs to come back down to Earth in order to understand how to soar out from the bonds of this Earth, to all those vast realms beyond. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway, to talk myself back down, keep myself here. After all, I have company coming for the holidays, more nostalgia yet to accumulate. And maybe I’ll get a new book.
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