Nostalgia and Novelty

Nothing in what I’ve written in this post tells you about where I am geographically, so skip reading and look at the pictures for location tour information only. 🙂

A while ago, I had the opportunity to write a paper about the psychologically therapeutic benefits of using musically-evoked nostalgia to access memories to sustain someone as they go through transitions, grief, or challenge. I strongly believed then, as I do now, that combining musically-evoked nostalgia and the bittersweet feelings that it triggers with a sense of growth(sometimes called post-traumatic growth) could have significant benefits, especially in a world where most of us are immersed in sound culture whether we want to be or not. In this vein of awareness, the Marley that I hear when I walk along the main beach street here in Krabi, Thailand, reminds me of all the different versions of me, the innocence and wisdom that I embodied at each stage, the things I could not have known would happen, and the sense of all of these versions walking with me now as I continue my visits to Ao Nang Beach. I feel the teenaged me in Hawaii and the sense that I could learn to do anything; to a few years later me on the glaciers of the French Alps, knowing that I was proving that I could do anything, to the 26-year-old me, dancing in my first pregnancy and believing that truly, everything WAS going to be alright, and the same with my second pregnancy that followed shortly thereafter…to the early 30-year-old me beginning to see some real problems in my marriage… to the yoga teacher me who instigated Marley Mondays, teaching every Monday class, regardless of style, with the reminder from Mr. Marley that the three little birds were still singing their sweet song; for the years I was fighting to stay married and needed to have a mental safe place and kept Marley Mondays going through a separation, heart-wrenching betrayals, divorce and total single motherhood…Don’t worry about a thing, said Marley, and in those years, I clung to those words and songs to remember all the stronger, more innocent versions of who I had been, remembering those versions of me were still in me somewhere. In the years following, my sons used particular Marley songs to calm themselves before an exam or a big challenge, and I noticed it meant entirely different things to them. For them, it’s home; it’s remembering Mom dancing in the kitchen or attending yoga practice on Mondays. For me, Marley has become a nostalgic reflection, a tracking of time and these days, hearing Marley as I look out from a beach in Thailand reminds me of all the different women I have been between Hawaii beach me and Thai beach me. I’m not trying to paint a romantic and tidy arc from one point to the other, and I will be the first to say that some parts of my life between those two points may never seem unmessy. And at the same time, to feel such tapestry, the fullest range of human emotions over all those years, all connected to the same music…it’s almost overwhelming in the sense of beauty, pain, love and loss, and, ultimately, a feeling of “I made it through that-ness.” I was thinking of what I said to a friend recently, that this trip will be the first time in more than 20 years that I am not instantly attached to, or responsible for, other humans, my first time truly alone in decades as I hear the familiar strain once again of don’t worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing, is going to be alright. Instantly, as my body sits on a beach bench in its deliberate solitude, I mentally time travel to the deepest contentment I felt in the overly full yoga classes I taught as we all breathed and moved together, to the joy of seeing my little boys scream-singing the verses as they snowboard through puffs on snow on a bluebird day, to my wracking sobs as a single mother coming home to a furniture-less house, wondering how the hell it could ever be alright again, to the bliss I felt as I scootered barefoot around Waikiki as a young woman. As I continue throughout these recent days, getting those nostalgic hits every day, I take the opportunity to love all the different versions of the woman I chose to be then, that I had to be…I use the benefit of hindsight to integrate the truth that I am here now, having come through experiences that broke me and trapped me to the point where I desperately felt there was no way out, no choices left. And yet, while this bittersweet nostalgia doesn’t erase any experiences, it gives growth to new and novel context to who I was then. With this kind of novel and heartfelt nostalgia, I can see all the things that have happened since those darkest days that I thought were too outrageous to hope for and the emerging recognition of who I am now. It also makes me wonder what the future versions of me will think when I continue to be reminded to not worry because maybe not every little thing will be alright, but for the most part, it all really will be.

Koh Hong(Hong Island), Koh Poda(Poda Island), Koh Tup(Tup Island) – All in Thanbok Khoranee National Park

Photo Gallery: Blue Pool(Thung Teao Forest National Park), Koh Hong(Hong Island)(Thanbok Khoranee National Park), Blue Pool, Hot Springs Waterfalls(Thung Teao Forest National Park)(they felt amazing), Emerald Pool,(Thung Teao Forest National Park), Crystal Pool(Thung Teao Forest National Park), Tiger Cave Temple Mountain Top, (Thung Teao Forest National Park), Ao Nang Beach midstorm