- Elicit
I seem to experience intense feelings of nostalgia rather frequently in my everyday life. It’s brought on by the simplest or mundane of things, like the way the sun hits the top of conifers in the morning or evening, the trilling of a bird in the distance during certain seasons or weather conditions, the way a wall clock ticks away steadily in the stillness of my home (especially when accompanied by motes of dust in the sunlight), or the smell of a running air conditioner.
These moments illicit elicit both mysterious and beautiful emotions, but are hurled at me constantly. While I enjoy the feelings they give me, I seem to experience them far more often than I think most would consider normal. I don’t know if there is a term for this sense of hyper-nostalgia, or what (if anything) it’s indicative of. Most of it is tied to insignificant moments from my childhood, like lying in the melting snow on a Spring day (the trilling bird), or sitting bored in the car waiting on my mother (the sun on conifers), but a lot of it is more ambiguous.
So I thought it would be fun to ask other people what their strongest (and perhaps recurring) moments of nostalgia are triggered and/or tied to. What are some of yours?
deleted by creator
The OG grand theft auto song by Da Shootaz brings me back too
I grew up next to a stop sign in a tiny town straddling a one-lane road that by some joke of fate was the the most efficient automobile route between two points of much greater interest.
To me, the sound of a big diesel engine idling at a stop is the sound of a peaceful winter night with my bedroom window open.
This one is easy for me. When I was a kid, my mom made a hamburger casserole. The ingredients were fairly cheap, it was easy to make, delicious, and filling – all perfect for a single mother who worked long hours. Needless to say, we had it pretty regularly. When she passed away, my wife inherited all of her recipes. Mom has been gone 10 years, but when my wife makes it, it tastes just like it used to and takes me back to a time when, even though we didn’t have much money, it was her and me against the world. Eating it now gives me a warm comfortable feeling.
In fact, I’m going to text my wife now and tell her that I’d like some for supper this week.
Music for me. I listen to music a lot, so when I experience something significant or memorable, I associate it to the song I was listening to at the time. Whenever I hear the song, it takes me back to that memory.
Same. To this day I can’t listen to Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado without being thrown back to 2006 cause my cousin had bought that CD on release and played it all the time.
Same. Certain songs take me back to the place I first heard them, usually walking around as a teen with a discman. And now as an adult it happens with “this song = this block of the city” where I was driving and it came on.
I don’t mean to be pedantic, but just so you know: illicit refers to things which are taboo, illegal, or frowned upon. I think you mean elicit which is to evoke a feeling
For me, it’s the sound of heavy rain on the roof. Grandma’s house had a tin roof, and we lived in a climate where it rained all the time. The rain hitting a metal roof makes a distinctive sound that I had forgotten about for many many years until I moved into my own place and replaced the roof with steel. It’s just so soothing knowing the world’s having a fit, but you’re safe and cozy in your home
world’s having a fit, but you’re safe and cozy in your home
Such a beautiful way to describe it.
The smell of bay water and the sound of seagulls brings me back to vacationing at the Jersey shore as a child.
Illicit- forbidden, illegal, taboo
Elicit- evoke a response, obtain
Whoops.
As a kid, we visited my grandmother often and she always had vanilla ice cream for us, and she played classical music on the piano. Now every time I eat vanilla ice cream or hear any of the pieces she played, I am reminded of our visits to her home. She had an old apartment, and all the furniture was at least 100 years old other than the baby grand Yamaha piano.
At my old job they had these kiosks that had a printer and would beep when they were out of paper. One of them beeped at a low pitch for some reason. It always reminded me of old computer games
The smell of skunk reminds me of summer no matter when I smell it
the smell of heavily chlorinated water. i used to spend a heck of a lot of time at the pool when i was a kid, and where i live now there aren’t nearly as many pools, so it’s not something encountered often anymore.
that hotel hallway smell. can’t quite describe it any other way, but it hits hard for me
Whenever I eat at a restaurant and they have strawberry rhubarb pie in the menu, I gotta take a slice. Takes me right back in time to my grandmother.
Grew up in an apartment across the street from an end of line tram station. So the screeching of the wheels on the tram line when it makes a tighter turn does it for me.
