Nostalgia

What is the best way to celebrate anniversaries, by looking back and celebrating the past? Nostalgia is one of the most powerful currents in life, not least when it springs from a source of deep happiness, in this instance a golden season spent on a beautiful island with dear friends. Next year will mark the twentieth since those halcyon days.

Can this be occasion to recognize where we have come in our lives and what lies ahead? That summer forms a wonderful memory and many of our activities continue to reap benefits today, for people who were there and others who have come along since. Our Dead Poets Society-style reading group meets regularly to this very day, threading what was and what is yet to be.

I'm a sentimental cuss. I love to sink into the warm comfort of fine memories and linger over images captured from the best of times. In girding for next year's anniversary, I'm reminded of this quote from John Galsworthy, that the value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it. This is the real question, to weigh the precious metal of memory, to discover whether it is better kept in a vault or transformed into new currency.