Window to My Past by Nannette Croce

Last week we had one of those early warm days here in southeast Pennsylvania. The temperature reached 80 but without summer’s stifling humidity. So despite a prediction of rain, I kept my window cracked when I went to bed that night.

I woke in the night to a soft spring rain patting down on the leaves outside my window, interspersed with a rustling breeze that sent the blinds tapping against the sill. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I remembered the days before air conditioning was standard in most suburban homes. In the summer, windows remained open through all but the most fierce summer storms. Then we’d shut them tight, sitting in the hot oven of a house watching rain sheet down the glass until it left as quickly as it came and everything opened again feeling cooler and fresher.

On clear summer nights we played outside until we could make out nothing but shadows or our Moms called us in early for a bath to wash the scent of grass and dried earth from our knees and elbows. Even the adults sat out on porches and patios as long as possible to catch the breezes.

Generally, TV’s significance dwindled in the summer months, at least until after dark. TV was summer reruns except, for us kids, the shows we couldn’t stay up late enough to watch during the school year like The Untouchables or one of the “eight million stories in the Naked City” or maybe a summer replacement variety show. We all had to agree because there was just one TV and three channels to choose among.

I’m grateful for my air conditioner on those 100 plus days, but I’m also grateful for those open windows to my past.

Nostalgia by Nannette Croce

Why do we idealize the past? The English language even has a specific word for it, nostalgia. To the best of my knowledge there is no similar word for appreciating the present.

TV has long provided a vast wonderland for nostalgia. When I was very young shows like The Roaring Twenties and The Untouchables were popular. The big hit in the 70s was The Waltons, starting in The Great Depression and continuing through WWII. Later that decade it was Happy Days, looking back at the 50s. Then, in the 90s we had That 70s Show, a nostalgic look back at a decade of nostalgia for the 30s and 50s.

Whether culturally or individually, the lens of hindsight brings good memories to the forefront while bad memories fade or disappear. Weren’t the 20s a time of political corruption and psychological trauma from the The War to End All Wars? Wasn’t the Depression when ruined financiers launched themselves from windows and farms out west turned to dust? The 50s were “happy days” for white middle-class American males and their children. Women and minorities fared much worse. And the 70s brought us Watergate, the evacuation of Saigon, and the Iran hostage crisis.

Inherent in nostalgia, that yearning for the past, is the feeling that we didn’t appreciate it near enough. Given the chance for a do-over, we’d enjoy the good and not exaggerate the bad.

But we don’t get do-overs. To vary the song, the present is the "good old days" of the future. Take a moment to think what moments in the present you will feel nostalgia for in the in years to come, from globally to personally. What better way to feel gratitude for what you have right now.