I read an article about nostalgia once, written by Chuck Klosterman. He has this theory, that in some way, we feel nostalgia for things we have achieved a level of expertise in through accidental repetition. He talks about the Ozzy Osbourne album Bark at the Moon being a nostalgic trigger. The idea is that we ingest certain things over and over again, and without realizing it, are becoming experts. This level of expertise then translates to a level of appreciation and understanding for a: smell, album, game, place.
:::
I got Pokemon Yellow Version for my birthday in second grade. It was the game to have if you were a kid in second grade at the turn of the millennium. Pikachu would follow you around as you traversed the Kanto Region, earning gym badges and battling Team Rocket on your quest to becoming a Pokemon Master. This innovation paralleled the anime television show.
I trained my Pikachu – who I nicknamed Sparky – up to level 92. I beat the Elite Four and my Rival to become a Pokemon Master, and caught Mewtwo. I am 23 years old, and about once a year I will play through an entire Pokemon game. I play it through, which takes between one and three weeks – depending on how often I play.
Every time I play one of those games now I am instantly transported back to that second grade version of myself. I am reminded of Sparky at level 92, and I don’t understand the level of commitment I must have had at eight years old to achieve this mastery. It was and is a kids game, but so is baseball and all the other major sports. It isn’t easy.
Put simply, the game brings me back, and in some ways I think Chuck might be right. I have played this game so many times now, and when I was younger, that it created a relationship of great depth.
:::
There is a wooden bridge on the east side of Marist College. Through the underpass and over the bridge to get to upperclassmen housing. The first time I walked over the bridge there was no underpass, just a dark alley and an abandoned building farther south on Route 9. It was the first weekend of freshman year, and I was with some newly made friends on our way to a party at the Ultimate Frisbee Team Captain’s house. The captain gave me a Yuengling, and I played a game of beer pong with this girl Kendra, who I was becoming friends with. It was an exceptional evening. Eventually we left, and went to the diner, but all of this is less important for this essay.
The bridge. The bridge is what I came here to write about.
There is this distinct scent I associate with the bridge, like it is just about to rain, and everything I smell is clear. I assume this heightened sense is a result of the very small creek that runs beneath the bridge. The smell is stronger when the weather is warmer, I think it carries the moisture better.
On a field trip to Frost Valley in seventh grade, a tour guide explained our noses become moist before it rains and this is why we perceive smells better just before a rainstorm. This, she said, is also one of the reasons dogs have a more acute sense of smell. I have not fact-checked this since that field trip, and I don’t intent to.
Anyway, look at me getting off track again. I walk across that bridge now, and I’m 18 years old. I’d walked across the bridge many times in my college career, first on my way to parties, then as an upperclassman on my way to class. If I returned now, on a warm spring evening, and ambled across those wooden planks; off I’d go five years into the past. I guess this makes me an expert in crossing this bridge.
:::
Jumping in puddles, listening to “Good Riddance” driving down Dune Road, Aunt Jane’s old house… There are those handful of memories we each carry that resonate deep in our bones. Sometimes the reason is apparent, but other times it is innocuous. But the feeling is always the same: that rush in my mind, I can feel the wind of all the other memories whooshing past as I travel at warp speed to the water fountain outside the all-purpose room in Clayton Huey Elementary School. And that wind blows throughout my body; I feel it in my knees.
I want to go back and feel these things again. But, it is in the memory that their value lies. I don’t know what I am doing now that will spark these feelings in the coming years, but I don’t doubt there are things I will yearn for in that same way. And I’ll turn the memories over in my mouth like a sweet piece of pineapple. Things will be clearer then than they are now. Time does that… I’m not sure if this is all that illuminating.
Lemmen's Nursery 