Sometimes, particularly near the holidays, I have a craving for the past. Not all of it, mind you, just the past that we so conveniently see in our mind’s eye through a sepia lens with a low light and a soft falling snow. We are all waxing poetic with or without an affinity for the romantic. I find that when I get lost in the imagination of my memories, it makes me sick. Literally nauseous. This happens when I look at the Christmas tree in the evening, and I squint my eyes a little so that the pile of dishes in the background just looks like a blur. I can’t get close enough to it. If given the chance, I would actually climb into a snow globe.
But all of this nostalgia is a rejection of the very fire of life that we are living now. Ecclesiastes tells us not to say “...’why were the former days better than these?’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” This is not a rejection of fondness of memories, but a help from falling in the slough of despond. We have to accept the price of gas, thank God, and move on. Our kids are still cute, winter is still cold, and in the immortal words of Anne: “the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not”. Tonight I will sit by the Christmas tree without squinting.