Nostalgia
always seems so grand a thing. Nostalgia
for turrets and towers, queens and knights of old, the mighty days of Camelot
or of John Cheever's consequential castles.
Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot!
King Arthur:
"Ginny, Ginny, suppose we create a new order of chivalry? A new order where might is only used for
right! To improve instead of to destroy.
Look, we'll invite all the knights, all
the kings of all the kingdoms, to lay down their arms to come and join us. Oh yes, Ginny. I will take one of the large rooms in the
castle, put a table in it, and all the knights will gather at it."
Our
ideas of castles, formed in childhood, are inflexible, and why try to reform
them? Why point out that in a real
castle thistles grow in the courtyard, and the threshold of the ruined throne
room is guarded by a nest of green adders?
Here are the keep, the drawbridge, the battlements and towers that we
took with our lead soldiers when we were down with the chicken pox. The first castle was English, and this one
was built by the King of Spain during an occupation of Tuscany, but the sense
of imaginative supremacy—the heightened mystery of nobility—is the same. Nothing is inconsequential here. It is thrilling to drink Martinis on the
battlements, it is thrilling to bathe in the fountain, it is even thrilling to
climb down the stairs into the village after supper and buy a box of matches. The drawbridge is down, the double doors are
open, and early one morning we see a family crossing the moat, carrying the
paraphernalia of a picnic.
(John
Cheever, from "The Golden Age")
My
own nostalgia, a key component of my writing and a significant part of me, is
usually for ruined abbeys, far-away places scented with pine and casting
shadows back many millennia, the still mysterious abandonment of Crete and silencing
of all its temple complexes, the tomb scene of Aida—especially as sung by Jussi Björling.
But
lately I've been achingly nostalgic for nothing more than those little paper
frills that people in the 60s stuck on chicken drumsticks for parties. Silly at the time, and so much sillier to
think about—let alone miss so badly—fifty years after the greasy chicken bones
went into the garbage, surely?
Remember,
though, the leg bone is connected to the thigh bone . . . and so on and on
until the whole body is fitted back together, animated, rising to life again.
Those
paper frills bring back a whole era, a way of living irremediably lost. The life I'll never have, which was so
beautifully created and sustained by my mother, for us. Our family home, the many family friends who
came to dinner several times a month, the perfectly ironed linen guest towels
(one of the two or three things that hit me hardest when I had to clear and
sell my childhood home five years ago), the spotless rolling pin, the good
dishes and polished silver—no, gold—ware, the cupboards full of spotless
tablecloths. I marvel at how clean it
all was, and how sure; how that immense
enchanted realm of wellbeing continued on into my mother's eighties, right up
to the end. Her annual Norwegian
Christmas bread. My father's Heritage
editions of the classics (English, Russian, French); the Met broadcast every
Saturday at noon. Every detail ordered,
meticulous, carefully tended and preserved.
I,
on the other hand, have been so haphazard.
So relatively careless with the things I love. My future as a place of gracious living and a
safe haven doesn't bear scrutiny. I've
been a traveler, the meaning of the word including all the worst connotations
of gypsies in their feckless caravans. I
cook inelegant tagines and bake lopsided cakes; my plates are utterly mismatched
and any dinner guests sporadic. (So I'm
nomadic and sporadic, both.) My castles
are in ruins, and I've preferred—often hotly defended—that.
But
I'm sad now, aware of how much I have
missed—and how much I will miss, projecting my nostalgia into the uneasy future. The lovingly dusted vigas, carefully tended piñon fires, white gloves worn to church. Several generations of family close at hand. The wherewithal to drive down to La Fonda in the snow and borrow a couple of dozen paper frills from their Norwegian chef who'd come for dinner in the fall, complete with sandbakkels and aquavit, to fit onto the ends of chicken legs to jazz up this year's New Year's Eve buffet.
missed—and how much I will miss, projecting my nostalgia into the uneasy future. The lovingly dusted vigas, carefully tended piñon fires, white gloves worn to church. Several generations of family close at hand. The wherewithal to drive down to La Fonda in the snow and borrow a couple of dozen paper frills from their Norwegian chef who'd come for dinner in the fall, complete with sandbakkels and aquavit, to fit onto the ends of chicken legs to jazz up this year's New Year's Eve buffet.
image: Camelot, Gustave Dore
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