Nostalgia
August 18, 2013
On the plane ride home from Munich I watched a movie called “Midnight in Paris.” I had heard about it and was advised to watch it by a friend, given my affinity for European cities and romantic flicks, but had no idea it would be more than just that - a flick. Having just watched it again (I ordered it from Amazon nearly the second I got home), I understand it now. The movie’s message was that we will never think that the present is as great as the past. The greatness of the past has been validated by ourselves and by others. We unanimously agree that certain events were unforgettable, the best fill-in-the-blank of our lives, but we often don’t know that as we live them. Maybe this moment, as I write, is the greatest moment of my life, but I won’t know it until later. Maybe it was yesterday, maybe it will be tomorrow. You never know until later, when the past is just that - the past.
Thinking this way has made me realize that it’s no use longing for my next Europe trip or Greek excavation, reliving memories and poring over my pictures. That was the past and I know it’s great now. Not that I didn’t know how wonderful it was at the time, but it is more built up in my mind now. Each moment is what you make of it, no matter where you are. If you constantly look to the past you will miss your present and therefore not create any more memories of the past. All you will have is the one memory you constantly look back to.
Yesterday I was sitting around my apartment feeling sorry for myself (when I wrote the previous blog!). Feeling sorry that I was in stupid Kansas, feeling sorry that I was ripped from the EU, feeling sorry about all the work I have ahead of myself this year. But why? I see that it’s so silly now. My life is exactly what I make of it. Just because I’ve stopped traveling doesn’t mean that my life has to stop being interesting. If I want to sit around and feel sorry for myself, what will I feel? Sorry. If I decide to go out, do things, meet people, and do my work, what will I feel? Happy. It is important to remember the past, but not to live in it. Nostalgia is fine and dandy as long as you don’t let nostalgia paralyze you.
At one point during the excavation this summer one of the trench supervisors said that we students were the future of archaeology, that we would all be working together for the rest of our lives, and that someday we would look back on our time in Greece together. Again in Innsbruck when Josh and I visited our friend, Ben, from the excavation, Josh mentioned that he was having a bit of futuristic nostalgia, picturing our little group in the future, reflecting on our visit together in Innsbruck as we discuss archaeology. Did Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein ever have similar thoughts? Don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means comparing myself to Gertrude Stein, just wondering if brilliant minds, especially of those portrayed in “Midnight in Paris,” ever looked into the future to look back at the present and realized how great their present was. I think this futuristic nostalgia is an important kind of nostalgia because it made us appreciate and remember that moment. I think we were able to truly appreciate that walk back to Ben’s apartment in the pouring rain because we realized that we were creating a memory, creating history, rather than long for another time, despite the fact that we were cold and wet and probably should have been thinking of warm, sunny Greece just to raise our body temperatures a little bit.
This year I’m going to appreciate my present. I’m not going to long to be in another place, another time, another anything. Sure, there are nicer places to be than Kansas, but I’m not in those places. I am here. And by living in the here and now it will be that much better. There’s no point in longing for something else if you can’t have it. It’s true that I can’t really be Indi-Andy again until next summer, though I know that I always am Indi-Andy and will always be having adventures… maybe just on a smaller scale in Kansas given the fact that I’m supposed to be studying and writing most of the time.
And with that sentiment I will bring this summer’s blog to a close. I’m not saying I won’t dabble in some blogging here and there this year, just that the adventures of Indi-Andy are on pause until next summer… or at least the planned adventures. Now in Kansas I resume my alter ego, Andrea, a Classics grad student struggling through Latin and Greek and longing for her pickaxe, yet knowing that the time will come for big picks soon enough. No more nostalgia for me.
