51 | Creative thread: Nostalgia when it hurts

Hi everyone,

If you’ve been here a while you might remember that I am prone to bouts of nostalgia, in a way that sometimes feels unwelcome. I like to think of myself as fairly pragmatic, but I definitely overindulge in nostalgia. It’s cozy, but it shifts. I revisit comforting memories so often, and in response to such varying impulses, that it can sometimes feel like pressing a bruise.

“Nostalgia when it hurts” is something that’s been occupying my thoughts for many years now. In my novel-in-progress I’m interested in nostalgia as a place of retreat. Sometimes it validates. Sometimes it distorts, obscures. ⁠

So I've given myself a small July project: to follow that thread through novels, essays, films, paintings, and whatever else it happens to touch. I’m going to explore questions of nostalgia through the mind of other people, but I’m also going to dive deep into my own specific nostalgias and (try to) observe them critically.

(For those reading this on the day I send it out, hello! Please wish me luck as I will be on day two of a two-day DIY at-home writing retreat. Spiritually scold me if you sense I’m slacking off.)

Never Let Me Go/The Buried Giant. Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors partly for the way he explores the various facets of memory and nostalgia. I honestly haven’t yet decided which of these two I’ll reread, as they deal with these topics differently, but I know that either will give me a lot to think about. Especially as each has influenced my work in different ways already (Never Let Me Go was an influence on The Quiet is Loud).

My old map book from the ‘80s. When my family and I moved to Mississauga, our neighbourhood was brand new, still in progress. We got a little book showing all the streets in the city, and I pored over that thing like it were a holy text. I often rode my bike to the newer streets so I could draw them into the blank spaces on the map, connecting roads that didn’t exist when the book was printed.

It’s one of my favourite personal heirlooms because it’s a tangible record of change. And now that that change is frozen in time, it’ll be interesting to revisit the old streets and even some of the ads printed in the book. As someone who moved away and later returned to her hometown, I’m expecting it to dredge up a lot of stuff. One question I’m especially curious about is: did my early cartography cement a certain idea of home in my developing brain that my adult self is now untangling?

Svetlana Boym is a cultural theorist whose name came up a lot when I was researching books for this project - particularly The Future of Nostalgia. I don’t think I have it in me to read more than one book this month though, so I’m going to start with essays. The first one is written by Boym, the second is by several nostalgia-related works including some by Boym. It’s a Svetlana Boym starter pack.

Films: Good Bye, Lenin!; Aftersun; Svetlana Boym: Exile and Imagination: The Life and Work of a Critic, Artist & Author; The World’s End; Dazed and Confused. Two films I haven’t seen, one documentary, my favourite nostalgia cautionary tale, and my favourite movie from high school. When I say “favourite” for Dazed and Confused, I mean it was foundational. My friends and I watched it often. It was the only movie I’d seen that represented us: the way we dressed, the music we liked, even the things we did with our time - as Linklater said, “riding around and trying to look for something to do with the music cranked up.”

Interesting too that it was a movie made in the ‘90s set in the ‘70s, its own form of looking back. I think I’ve only watched this once as an adult and it was a long time ago, so I’m expecting an emotional wallop here too.

TV: Spaced. I discovered this show in my mid-twenties but it changed me in the way something does when you’re younger. Maybe because I wasn’t younger. The time when it was made was special to me personally, and I was already nostalgic for it when I discovered Spaced. It was formative for me and while I revisit it often, I have yet to do so with the express purpose of analyzing my own nostalgia. I think it’ll be a good precursor to The World’s End, mentioned above.

Podcast: The Psychology of Nostalgia

Other: Various BBC Archive YouTube videos from the ‘80s and ‘90s, my “High School Nostalgia Vortex” music playlist, old photos from my nine years in Calgary. A few avenues into nostalgia bruise-pressing here, both familiar and anticipated. 

As a reminder (or if you’re new here), as part of my creative advisor/troubleshooting services, I’ve started a second newsletter called Curiosity Notes - monthly reflections for thoughtful creatives. There’s no pressure, no prescriptive advice. Just a short moment for curiosity that you can use however you’d like. I’m not stopping or changing what I write here at Deadmedia, but if you’d like to check out Curiosity Notes I’d love for you to join me there too.

Thanks for reading Deadmedia today. Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts!

Talk soon,
-Sg.

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