november: nostalgia

a gen Xer reminiscences (as an antidote to this political hellscape) - monthly creative curations on a theme

little me, my kitty oreo, and a pumpkin we might have grown in our backyard garden

As I sit down to write this month’s curation of lovely things, it’s truly difficult for me to think about anything other than the pending election. I pondered curating a list for us of progressive cities outside the U.S. where we might all live a safer life should a racist, rapist, fascist felon comes into power… BUT I decided to stay focused on my mission of making everything around me more true and beautiful. What feels most true and beautiful for me, consistently every single November of my life, is pure, sweet nostalgia… Let’s reminisce together and remember bits and pieces of the innocent beauty of living a human life as an antidote to the terrifying haunted house that is the daily news.

These round-ups come out on the first day of every month, and they include my curations of music, art, fashion, beauty, and/or other areas of expression. The full content of the monthly posts (including a rad monthly Spotify playlist!) is accessible only to paid subscribers, but everyone gets a generous peek below and can also unlock this post in a free trial if you need to see me hugging Tori Amos or hear the awesome November playlist.

It’s the first day of November, a month when I always feel the most nostalgic. Even when I was a (sensitive, permeable) little kid, I would tear up as soon as the air smelled like autumn. I have always experienced anticipatory nostalgia; when I’m in a beautiful moment, sometimes I have a hard time staying present because I am seeing it through the eyes of my future self. I’m seeing the nostalgia being created as a moment is unfolding. Nostalgia is the deep knowing that everything everything everything is temporary, so there’s both a gratitude and a grief that live together in the nostalgic heart.

i’ve always loved brian andreas’ expression of this

Here are some glimpses of nostalgia from a GenX kid

(who grew up in Virginia Beach. Born 1975; high school class of 1993.)

Perhaps these memories will spark some nostalgia for my fellow midlifers, as well…

1. Lunchboxes. My mom packed my lunch from kindergarten until I insisted on buying lunch from the cafeteria in 9th grade. (Though in elementary school, I sometimes bought lunch on weirdly-rectangular-and-crustless-with-teeny-cubes-of-mystery-meat pizza days.) I always loved my lunchboxes, which were usually themed in the Jim Henson vein of pop culture: Bert + Ernie, Muppets, Fraggles, etc. I think I also had one with Gismo from The Gremlins and E.T., too. (In middle school, I graduated to using a brown paper bag for my lunches.) Inside the lunchbox, I’d consistently find a main course (like a sandwich or… and this might be why I became a vegetarian for thirty friggin’ years… “potted meat and crackers” - whuuut?), a fruit or veggie, something sweet (like HoHos, Twinkies, Snowballs, Chips-a-hoy cookies, etc.) and something salty (like pretzels or chips). My mom always put in a boxed juice drink that she had frozen, then wrapped in a paper towel, and put in a plastic bag. By the time lunch rolled around, my drink had thawed to a yummy smoothie consistency. Almost every day, my mom would have written a little note to me on my napkin with her black LePen.

this kid ate potted meat?!? who is she?

2. Riding in the back of pick-up trucks. My uncle, aunt, and cousins lived next door to us when I was in elementary school, and my uncle drove a tan pick up truck. I remember playing on my driveway at age 9, twirling my silver baton to Prince’s Raspberry Beret playing from the radio on the workbench in my garage. My cousin, Amy, who is the same age I am, runs across my front yard, sections of her light blonde hair are pulled up in the front into two streaming ribbon barrettes. She yells, “Jen, my dad says he’ll take us to Marge’s!” (That was our nickname for Margie and Ray’s, the teeny convenient store/tackle shop just around the corner from us.)

   

   I drop my baton and we run to Amy’s driveway. I climb carefully over the back gate of the truck and into the ridged truck bed. Their golden retriever, Sandy, bounds into the truck and runs over my lap to Amy, leaving a dollop of dog droll on my thigh. We begin this silly-short drive just around the corner, the wind tangling our blonde hair as we sit on the hot, metal wheel wells. I wonder how/if this was legal in the early 80s, but it was the way we rode to the store, to the beach, and I remember once on a two-hour roadtrip to Nags Head.

3. Candy store favorites. Many of our truck bed rides were all about getting to the beloved candy aisle. I’d usually choose a box of Lemonheads, Tootsie Roll pops (and look for the ⭐️ at the end of the bow + arrow for good luck), Nerds, Sprees, and Snickers or Reese’s cups. My cousin would always get a Bit-o-Honey bar, Dots, Fun Dip, Twix, and Gobstoppers. We’d often spring for wooden paddles with a rubber ball attached by elastic and a staple, plastic hoola hoops, or bubbles. Amy and I alwayssss got at least two packs of Garbage Pail Kids (series 1) to trade with each other until our sets were complete. The candy drawer at my Nana’s house was a whole different world — everything Brach’s! Does this look familiar to you?

4. Sick days. I never liked missing school because I had social FOMO when I was absent, but there was a particularly cozy flavor to these sick days that has always stuck with me. My mom would make me a “sick bed” on the couch, comprised of all the afghans my Nana crocheted and the pillow from my bed. I’d watch The Price is Right and other game shows (maybe Press Your Luck - “No whammies!”). My mom would give me Saltines and ginger ale if my stomach was upset. For some reason, she’d also make Jell-O for “hydration,” and I’d have Campbell’s chicken noodle soup for lunch. Sometimes, my mom would run to the grocery store (maybe for Jell-O and Saltines?) and come back with coloring books, new crayons, magazines, and maybe the next installment of The Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins book series. My grandmother would sometimes bring me a book of word search puzzles and play Rummy with me. Once, Amy and I were sick the same day with the same bug, and we got to stay in my bed together and play Clue and Stop Thief all afternoon. On sick days, I’d look at the VCR clock throughout the day to figure out what class I was missing. I was disappointed when the school bus would pass my house in the afternoon, as it suddenly felt like an ordinary afternoon at home after school — the specialness had ended.