What was and what is 🚲
Reflections on nostalgia, belonging, and etherness. ❤️🩹
The past four days I’ve woken up in the Museum of Nostalgia that is my childhood home, situated on the other side of the country from where I currently reside. After some renovations, repainting, and redecorating, the house itself has changed tremendously, but there are reminders of the place that was my safe landing pad for 19 years. This week, I’m here without my husband and kids for a speaking gig, and my parents are away. Strangely, it’s the first time in 24 years that I have been alone in this house for any length of time.
From time to time, I find myself staring, frozen in place for a moment, as a flood of memories inundate me in this place. My old room is now a sewing room, but I can glance out the window and remember what it was like to wake up to birdsong. There is an unidentifiable smell — not an unpleasant one — that takes me right back to neon leggings and oversized T-shirts, a phone hanging on the wall (with *69 dial back!), family favourites being cooked in the kitchen, and the many times I came into the mud room, soaked and smiling from an afternoon spent playing outside. There are thousands more snapshots and memories I could extract from this place.
I’ve learned the word nostalgia has changed in its meaning over time. While now it is meant to evoke positive emotion, its roots go back to the 17th century when it was used to describe a medical condition brought about by extreme homesickness. The word itself comes from the Greek nostos (return home) and algos (pain). I think what I’ve been mostly feeling is positive. But there are other, more complicated feelings bubbling up and not fully declaring themselves — as though homesickness is not only a symptom of being away from home but also encountering what was once home.
Last night, I went for a run through my old neighbourhood, past the houses of friends from what feels like another lifetime. I remember exactly which doors I used to knock on and wonder if their parents still live there. The pavement of the sidewalks has cracked and bubbled where we once glided effortlessly on roller blades (ah, the wondrous potential of fresh asphalt). The front yard trees have grown alongside the children who once played beneath them. Then, of course, beyond the streets there is the forest I’ve written about so much, including the trails and pathways that form the Trans Canada Trail and National Capital Greenbelt. I see a little girl learning to ride a bike and I can picture my daughter back home, just learning to balance on two wheels.
When I see that child, I realize how differently my life could have been. I see, clear as day, what resulted when I moved across the country and pursued the mountain life that was calling me. As familiar as it feels to be in my home town — even when there’s a certain kind of muscle memory that kicks in as suburban development renders some areas unrecognizable — I’m aware that this is not where I belong. I’m irrefutably welcome and know I belong in my extended family. But my values and priorities have created an altogether new person, lifestyle and daily rhythm that would need to be shoehorned into this suburban neighbourhood if it was once again “home.”
I enter this space as both a life-long friend and stranger.
Then there is the awareness that this, too, will one day fade into more distant memory books. For now, the house is here, and I have reason to visit. I have annual opportunities to commune with the backyard woods I hold so dear. But this will not always be the case. The process was started when my siblings moved out. One by one we set off on our own paths, which took two of us very far from here. I think of my young family now, all living under one roof, and grasp the looming reality that what we have now won’t always be. John Koenig defines this as etherness, a word he constructed from ether, an intoxicating compound that evaporates very quickly, and togetherness.
I suppose this is a touch of melancholy. Perhaps bittersweetness. There are some feelings that define the human experience that, remarkably, we just don’t have words for. The point isn’t to try to label them exactly but to acknowledge them.
What results is a sense of gratitude for what was and what is, knowing that we can’t live in the past, nor between these spaces. But understanding the differences can give us clarity on how we want to move forward.
Understanding that this too shall pass allows us to simply appreciate it — no, cherish it — while it’s here.
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Meghan J. Ward is an outdoor, travel and adventure writer based in Banff, Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the author of Lights to Guide Me Home. Meghan has written several books and produced content for films, anthologies, blogs and some of North America’s top outdoor, fitness and adventure publications.
What’s caught my attention lately… ✨
A Canadian soprano artist and conductor Barbara Hannigan has just won the Polar Prize, often dubbed “the Nobel Prize for music.” The last Canadian to receive it was Joni Mitchell. What caught my attention was her performance in La Voix Humaine, in which she both sings and conducts. It is pure artistry. Here is a short documentary about that performance.
Check these out too… 🙌
Lights to Guide Me Home - my memoir (reviews welcome on Amazon and Goodreads)
The Wonders That I Find - my children’s book
My Email Newsletter - updates about my books, projects, and 1:1 coaching
I am an eight-generation Canadian and a descendent of British, Scottish and German settlers living, working, and recreating outdoors in Treaty 7 Territory — the homelands and gathering place for the Niitsitapi from the Blackfoot Confederacy, including the Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani First Nations; the Îyârhe Nakoda of the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney First Nations; the Tsuut’ina First Nation; the homeland of the Métis and Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation of Alberta, and many others. I am doing my utmost, both personally and professionally, to deepen my understanding of the history of Indigenous peoples and the impacts of colonialism — past and present.
Thanks for sharing this one Meghan!
Etherness is very much a factor as I age, especially as I come home from the funeral of a sister-in-law, and we found ourselves the ones aging at the front of the family, walking toward death.
The performance of La Voix Humaine was extraordinary, and I may have to write about its themes of perceived control in art and life. Thank you for posting it, and I'm curious how it is impacting you?