Nostalgia of the City
I was doing one of the readings for this week, and came across a section where Michael Taussig - the author - tells a story of how a fellow parent at his child's school had accompanied the class to the New York Public Aquarium. This was the first time he'd ever been to the Aquarium in his 17 years of living in New York, and I this quote particularly resonated with me:
'[We are] so enmeshed in the everydayness of the city that we very rarely bother to see any of its sights.'
It struck a chord with me simply because of how much it made me realise that I do the very same thing. I visited London a fair bit before moving for University (my sister lived here for 5 years before I did) and the past year and a half has just added to the sense of London just passing me by.
I do truly think that there is a massive sense of nostalgia in that. I don't visit usual tourist attractions because I can at any point - because my time isn't restricted, I have no urgency to see them. Ones that I've visited in the past invoke memories that can be lovely to experience as I pass them by on my way home, or are bad memories that I have no want to re-experience. Attractions that I do visit are often because of my past, happy experiences or for actual reasons - I'll sometimes visit Forbidden Planet, a pop culture/nerd merchandise shop in Covent Garden, because of how happy it used to make me when I'd visit my sister at age 14. The recent visits, however, have been to buy birthday/Christmas presents.
I had the same experience a few weeks ago when I walked past the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden. I was on my way to the tube station to go home, and got to relive the incredible memories of a Harry Potter convention I went to at the rooms in 2013.
The city is definitely nostalgic. Every corner can have a personal memory, for sure, but holds thousands of memories that you personally will never experience. Each specific square inch of a city will mean a different thing to different people, some happy, some sad, some wistful, some scary. That is the beauty and the ineffability of nostalgia.
I can stand in Hyde Park and think 'this is the exact place that I won one of those giant Toblerones at Winter Wonderland', although the decorations and stalls aren't there anymore, you cannot get rid of the physical space. A different person could stand in the exact location and remember that is where they got the news that their dad was in remission, or that they had their first kiss, or that they realised they had twelve more pounds in their account than they expected.
And I think that's beautiful.
'[We are] so enmeshed in the everydayness of the city that we very rarely bother to see any of its sights.'
It struck a chord with me simply because of how much it made me realise that I do the very same thing. I visited London a fair bit before moving for University (my sister lived here for 5 years before I did) and the past year and a half has just added to the sense of London just passing me by.
I do truly think that there is a massive sense of nostalgia in that. I don't visit usual tourist attractions because I can at any point - because my time isn't restricted, I have no urgency to see them. Ones that I've visited in the past invoke memories that can be lovely to experience as I pass them by on my way home, or are bad memories that I have no want to re-experience. Attractions that I do visit are often because of my past, happy experiences or for actual reasons - I'll sometimes visit Forbidden Planet, a pop culture/nerd merchandise shop in Covent Garden, because of how happy it used to make me when I'd visit my sister at age 14. The recent visits, however, have been to buy birthday/Christmas presents.
I had the same experience a few weeks ago when I walked past the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden. I was on my way to the tube station to go home, and got to relive the incredible memories of a Harry Potter convention I went to at the rooms in 2013.
The city is definitely nostalgic. Every corner can have a personal memory, for sure, but holds thousands of memories that you personally will never experience. Each specific square inch of a city will mean a different thing to different people, some happy, some sad, some wistful, some scary. That is the beauty and the ineffability of nostalgia.
I can stand in Hyde Park and think 'this is the exact place that I won one of those giant Toblerones at Winter Wonderland', although the decorations and stalls aren't there anymore, you cannot get rid of the physical space. A different person could stand in the exact location and remember that is where they got the news that their dad was in remission, or that they had their first kiss, or that they realised they had twelve more pounds in their account than they expected.
And I think that's beautiful.
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