soaking in familiarity

'Cause down the shore everything's alright,
You with your baby on a Saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When I'm walkin' down the street with you......
Tom Waits, Jersey Girl

I'm a drifter ..... a mindflowing drifter floating in a bay of remember whens on an upturned umbrella. The cold rain showers continue to fall from the grey skies like sobbing sheets. Slick wet dropping goblets saturate the fields, and make the last vestiges of flowers bow their heavy heads in humilty. Walking down the street with you seems so unattainable and yet so irresistibly imaginable like it was not so long ago......or was it longer than I want to believe it to be?

My thoughts keep reclaiming the past, but it seems less real, more blurred by time. Its the same feeling I get when I'm in the car late at night, when the conversation is punctuated with sleepy comforting silence.... when the music playing through the speakers is soaked in the sounds of ancient smoking whiskey ... vulnerably real.

There are days from the past which creep up from out of nowhere and bite you in the arse, leaving their nostalgic signature. Are there days like this from your past? You know, the ones when longing wrestles with familiar breathing.... of air already surrendered. Special little personal history moments that seem so ordinary to another because they just don't resonate with the same deep meaning, all of a sudden reappear out of thin air. Those "just had to be there" feelings which are so bloody meaningful can so quickly fill me with a lingering glad-sadness.

Nostalgia has the magical energy to connect you with just one other person out there in this lonely planet, to leave you wondering what would happen if you picked up the phone and you said..."Oh, my God, do you remember when we.....????" Would they smile the same memorable lopsided grin and fall right into the same chasm with you? Chances are....

What holds us in a state of nostalgia? On those rainy grey days when twilight hovers in a state of flux, why do those homesick attachments revel inside our sombre souls? We send out our dream scenes to collapse in a cold puddle of vanity, hoping for something we can never grip onto again. Are we afraid of standing in the long now? Are we afraid our glory days have skipped past us? Are we afraid that we are no longer attractive to others in a naturally flirtatious youthful way? Why do we cling to nostalgia rather than focus on the here and now.

Holding on tight to our memories, like a miser hoarding cash, like a puppet gripping his strings, like a lost soul looking for a warm body, we avoid our present day anxieties. Drifting into stories from our long agos is an escape hatch from mundane and stress as well as a reaffirmation of self. Glad-sadness.... joy and sorrow meshed into one.

Sometimes, we need grounding. Sometimes, we need to reconnect with the moments, with the lovely loving people whom we shared them with. They remind us of who we were, and who we are, and who we may becoming. As I drift along on an upturned umbrella, soaked in the familiarity of lived out written scripts, I will recognize my need today to revisit moments from my past and use the tangible feelings to help me understand how I made it this far.

Not stuck, just visiting while the rain falls down......

.....and to think it all hit me when I walked into the room where Mr. Waits song was playing........whoosh...and I was there.