Summer begins the season of the Great Nostalgia for me. Nostalgia is made up of the memories in the back corner of your brain that trigger something emotionally special and make you want to close your eyes and be transported back to that time. The smell of charcoal heating up on a grill, the sound of crickets chirping in the evening, the lightning bugs slow on and off flash during the hour that dusk falls, the smell of salty sea air in the car when you get close to the beach and for me, the taste of Ice Cream.
Last night while I was enjoying my Brownie Deluxe in the peace and quiet of my house I fell victim to the Great Nostalgia. I was victimized so much so that when I finished my treat, I went outside and laid down on the concrete on my back by the pool while it was starting to get dark to watch the clouds move ever so slowly, listening to the locusts and crickets and searching for the fleeting flash of a lighting bug. No thoughts of anyone or anything that I should be doing, just laying there enjoying the sounds and sights of summer... just like a kid.
Why is it that when we grow up that we turn off the parts of our brains that let us do nothing or use our imaginations and create memories for the Great Nostalgia? I decided at that point that I needed to exercise my ability to do nothing, let my brain soak up my surroundings, imagine my life with prince's on horses and fights with trolls and evil monsters with my elementary school friends out behind the McCarthy-Towne yard where the pine trees hung low, and remember how we used a magnifying glass while hiding inside the large tires in the school yard to burn holes in a leaf without getting caught by the teacher.
In that Great Nostalgia is where my father now lives as well as the trolls and prince's. I remember him taking me and my brothers to Friendly's to get Ice Cream during the summer (when we needed a fast treat and didn't have time to wait in line at Kimball's). I distinctly remember my Dad, me and my two brothers walking out across the parking lot with sugar cones in hand and me licking my treat right onto the ground in front of me. As the last of five children it was my role to immediately start crying for pity and I knew that the crying would get my Dad to go back in and get me another cone. To my brothers dismay (because it would have been SO much more fun for them if I didn't get another one) my Dad would hand me the second cone with instructions of not to lick at the bottom of the ice-cream ball where it was dripping down my sugar cone to avoid the catastrophe all over again.
As you raise your children, have time off with your family and enjoy the wonderful days of Summer, create the Great Nostalgia, relive it and never forget what it's like to be a kid eating Ice Cream with your Dad.
I've reached an age where I'm getting flashbacks of my childhood. They are more intense than any memory I've had before. It seems there are so many terrible past moments which have been deeply buried. Now, as an adult, I must accept get over them, and move forward.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, there are some wonderful, magically sweet ones also coming back to me; especially of my father and summertime! Like my loving Uncle Frank, my dad loved taking his kids out for ice cream. His favorite was Kimballs, where we would split their specials. I also recall a place called Buttricks, I think it was in Concord?
My memories of your Dad are all good. I remember him taking us digging for quahogs at the Cape. To this day, if I smell a cigar, I think of him. If I see an Truck with Xtra written on it, I think of his license plate, "Xtra5"!
My favorite memory of him was in August 1982, when Skip & I first bought an old house which needed a total rehab & renovation. While other adults were wondering what we had gotten ourselves into, Uncle Frank was the first to walk through it with a positive spirit and vision! He pointed out the great bones & qualities of owning such a historic gem, as we walked through the hot, run down, trash filled ( bad smelling!) house, we eventually called home. He was right, and I've always been grateful for his kind and uplifting words.