Nostalgia

nos-tal-gi-a n. [Gr nostos, a return + -ALGIA] a longing for something far away or long ago.

When I learned the word it was defined to me as homesickness. I am not sure about home, but I am certainly inclined to describe nostalgia as a sickness—one that, to my dismay, frequently afflicts me. It is like a stomach bug that causes a temporary bout of misery due to vomiting and diarrhea until it leaves your system and you feel good again. In my case, nostalgia seems to be more of a chronic disease. It comes and goes, rolls in like the tide, but I am never cured. Often it lies dormant and doesn’t disrupt me in my everyday business. Now, however, is not one of those times and I am franticly trying to rid myself of an irritating outbreak. However, by the time I finish ranting about my wave, the tide will roll out as quickly as it came, and I will have forgotten why I began writing in the first place.

I recently found myself in a tropical paradise on the Belizean coast. I have had remarkably good fortunate to say that, as a 23…wait, 24-year-old child currently earning a monthly wage of $300 US, I have enjoyed more exotic vacations than many will ever see in a lifetime (I thought of you incessantly, mother, as I lay on white sand sipping my coconut, feeling slightly guilty).

I was in the quaint little beach town of Placencia. In keeping with a prevailing theme, I arrived there mostly by accident, due to yet another series of arbitrary decisions. Again, I was pleasantly surprised by the result of my lacking premeditation. Upon arrival I thought I might be swayed to stay forever. Placencia essentially consists of a single walk (I would describe it as a sidewalk, but it is not at the side of anything) through the white sands of the Caribbean coast. Roads seem mostly unnecessary as Placencia is primarily accessed by boat. Colorful beach shanties on stilts and household businesses with annoyingly cutesy names such as The Secret Garden, Barefoot Bar, and Pickled Parrot, look out on the postcard waters of the Caribbean Sea. It is certainly a tourist destination, however there were few tourists. Each morning I watched children arrive for school by boat, unloading from the water taxis in their uniforms, while others languidly road their bicycles to school informing one another that “bell don’ raang yet.” They are all headed toward the section of beach where someone decided to build a school. No one is in a hurry.

My time in Placencia consisted primarily of sunning myself (SPF 30), swimming in the Caribbean, chasing tropical fish, and breaking open coconuts to drink with my award winning rum, 1 Barrel. I hitched a ride on a boat—drove rather—to a private island about an hour off the coast. I passed the day snorkeling (at which time I was nearly impaled by a sea urchin the size of a basketball), reading, writing, and yet again eating and drinking coconuts. The island’s care taker, Hector, a frail little man with a few missing teeth, was eager to scurry up the palms in order to find me the most perfect coconuts, which he proceeded to butcher with his machete—big knife for such a diminutive man. We then speared some lobsters for dinner. I felt like a princess, childhood dreams accomplished…“A fairy went a marketing and bought her own machete; she sweetly cuts her coconuts until the lobster’s ready”—that’s for you mom (See favorite childhood storybook A Fairy Went a Marketing). Yes, it would seem I fell asleep and awoke in quintessential paradise.

The moon was full when I returned to the mainland. I haven’t seen a moon like that since the Atacama desert, so surreally large and clear it appears to be sitting at my side, and larger still in its reflection in the sea. What a glorious moon. We sat unaccompanied and watched it hang above tide-less waters, my wine and I. Fantastically beautiful, perfectly peaceful and delicious, and yet I was ill. Struck with an unexpected bout of that retched nostalgia. I desperately wanted “home.” And I wondered how it was possible to long for the rain in a lobster filled paradise. I detest the rain, but I love lobster.

By the time I left Placencia, I could not get away fast enough. I was bored of paradise, not to mention bitten, burnt, and sweating 1 Barrel. It was time to go home. To my dismay, “home” in this case, meant San Marcos, Ocotepeque. Blast. I was in physically misery and the thought of returning to my hovel in San Marcos to clean myself with a bucket and cold, larvae infested pila water before crawling into my cot was particularly unappealing. My Honduran reality only exacerbated my episode and I spent the next two weeks in San Marcos longing for an illogical collection of pieces of the past.



I arrived back in San Marcos to be unwillingly plunged into the Honduran Christmas hoopla. Eye-sewing artificial pines adorned with brightly colored plastic, and windows sill lined with lights and tacky tinsel are in abundance. Oh the holidays. But like the rest of my experiences here, Christmas won’t be real. To my surprise, it is not the holidays that triggered my nostalgia. It’s the Ponderosas. They are just like those that line Morgan Lake Road, outside the Grande Ronde Valley. There have been moments on the mountain roads leading out of San Marcos where I could have been on that road that took me to school everyday. These moments are fleeting, however, as I am quickly brought back to Honduras by the sight of a banana tree. It is strange to see pines enlaced with bananas. Nonetheless, I find myself longing for Morgan Lake Road, and to watch dad watch the trees as he drives me up the mountain after school.

I don’t particularly miss the comforts of what some refer to as the developed world, or even for the people I love there. I am fairly certain I will see them again. Rather I am nostalgic for obscure, random, even mundane details of my unremarkable past. I miss riding to the lake in Dad’s 1965 red Toyota Landcruiser with the top off in Eastern Oregon summer. Apparently the surplus of this truck was shipped to Honduras as I have counted at least ten in the streets of San Marcos. I miss the buoy he brought back from the fishing boat in Alaska to hang as a swing from one of our apple trees. I miss mom’s garden—especially the poppies—and the way she used to get so furious that the deer would persistently eat them.

I miss Allan Bros. Coffee. Not so much the coffee, but the company I used to drink it with, and who we were at the time. I miss riding the Moab Schwinn to class at the University of Oregon…even in the rain. I desperately miss Sam Bonds Garage—more like a barn than a bar—with its microbrews in mason jars and bluegrass on Tuesdays. More than the bar, I miss the bike ride there and back to Alder Street through Eugene’s August air with the neibies.

Despite my recent outbreak of “homesickness,” I have no desire to be there today. There is no place I miss today, and there is no place that could ever be what I am longing for. Retuning anywhere would inevitably be a disappointment. I am sick for pieces of time, places in time, relationships in a time, which will never exist in quite the same way again. And so I will draw the conclusion that my particular strain of this disease is not concerned with far away so much as long ago. My affliction is knowing I will never see people in place and time again…is it possible to miss time more than people? I don’t know. I just hope that I look back on my time here in San Marcos and feel nostalgic—I am sure I will.

Just as I surmised, my symptoms have subsided and I am wondering what I have been rambling on about. I am exactly where I want to be, amidst what feels like ubiquitous adventure. I think that is all I ever really wanted anyway. Everyday is distinctly different from the last. Everyday I am learning. And there is more to come as I prepare to fly south for Argentina. I have never been so excited to be alive.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
-- On the Road Jack Kerouac