Pleated

(Note: This week's writing group prompt was "nostalgia" and I chose to write my offering in the format of this blog. This is a topic I have explored before, making similar observations, so if it seems familiar, it is. And that is perfect, given the subject. Here is my prompted writing, in its entirety.)

Inspirational song: ’39 (Queen)

I’ve long held an unconventional concept of time. While I may physically be traveling through time in a linear forward motion like everyone else, I do not always experience time in its classical order. I like to think of time as a flexible membrane that undulates and folds against itself like the pleats in a curtain that has been drawn back. In those places where the folds brush up against each other, the echoes of the past and glimpses of the future can jump across the membranes like viruses spreading and infecting host cells. Most of us know that a smell or a song can transport us to a place in our past, but I contend that it takes even less than that to draw a person’s senses across a fold in the curtain. It can be done with a color, a temperature, or even just a breath. I may never find a way to transport my flesh backwards or to skip forward, but I know it is ridiculously easy to dance across the membrane if I leave my body behind.

There are some eras in time that are closer to me than others. They are not only easier to reach, they sometimes reach out and grab me on their own, usually when I least expect it. For years I have felt like I was pinned to 1978, and I don’t know why. For a while I assumed that it was because it was the last year I truly felt like a child, and I retreated to a point where I was safe and carefree. Back then, all of my grandparents were still alive, and although my parents had just divorced, I had yet to feel like I was required to step up and behave like a responsible, miniature adult. I was secure in my child’s body, and had no concept of health problems or body image disorders. I could accept love and compliments unreservedly. My world was nearly perfect. Yet when I get nostalgic about this time, I’m not always pining for things that were age appropriate for a carefree ten year old. For every time I sing the theme song to Zoom or giggle over my schoolgirl crush on both Hardy Boys, but mostly Shaun Cassidy, there are moments that I remember 1978 like I was a woman in a Rod Stewart video. I yearn for the high fashion of the late 70s, or at least the silk blouses, high-waisted culottes, and knee boots. I reminisce about a disco scene I never experienced. Where did this come from?

Is it possible to be nostalgic for a life you never lived? I can relate to 1978 as a person who was actually alive then. I cannot explain my attachment to the next pleat in my curtain. I gravitate toward 1939 as if I were a child of it. I’m fascinated by it. It’s not the early rumblings of the war that draws me in, but simple daily items, like furniture, textiles, or appliances. Show me a giant radio from 1939, and I melt like someone has discovered my first pair of shoes or baby blanket. The best I can tell, the appeal for me is still attached to 1978. All the grannies I loved so much at that time of my life, the ones who helped raise me or taught me music and art, they all came of age in the 30s. My own grandparents married in 1939. Was it the way their homes were decorated? Was it their formative influences that in turn influenced me? I’ll never know. I doubt it even matters. It will never stop me from traipsing across the folds of time, whenever I feel nostalgic.