SWEET BITTERSWEET NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia is ageless and genderless. We've all experienced it.

For me, certain music seems to stir it in my soul. Each of the songs featured here falls into an associated mood-setting category for me, some stirring the more sweet feelings and some, the more bittersweet; some more first-hand, some more vicarious. Those songs are intrinsic to this subject which revolves around feelings, so several of them are included for your pleasure, along with some of my own poems for capturing those moments. N-Joy!

I treasure all my feelings among 'my favorite things'. I can think of nothing more static and sterile than to be deprived of honest feelings from anywhere along one end of their spectrum to its other! Though there's some regret mixed into them, feelings are part of being fully alive, outshining regret; not to suggest that negative feelings are less useful and valuable as they're being experienced 'now' or being remembered later. No! Besides their own values, they emphasize our positive feelings' values.

To fully experience feelings in their own moment and let them go when it passes allows the flow of life to bring us all its experiences and surprises, which we could never "order up", even were that an option. This process allows and arouses feelings and responses which fit the flow of experience when allowed to freely flow. Gracefully allowing it requires embracing of life without denying, overdoing or minimizing the feelings it stirs, but in simply allowing them to be, real and honest, in their time. Then releasing those when their time passes and they're 'over' is a prime secret of freeing and permitting oneself to move on into ongoing life and responses to its amazing spectrum. In its way, this is the "fountain of youth'. Of course, enduring feelings and those connections which are truly lasting recur with each moment in which they abide, like our breaths and heartbeats, needing neither to be forced, demanded or caged. In fact, they cannot be, if they are healthy and authentic. To attempt to is to become as rigid and fixed as those sad attempts to control or capture life's flow.

A dammed up river

Is no longer

A living river.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Remembering is a way to experience them again, though. It's one of our human privileges to be able to experience the present with all our being and awareness, even including sometimes choosing to invest it in selecting preferred memories to fill a present awareness we are living or even to dream to use it considering a possible future; but that is simply what those are: mere shadows, memories and dreams, not the real, living, changing present itself. We've merely used some of that living moment in pondering the past or future, but we cannot really relive or prelive our lives. We need to keep that in mind and not mistake the difference. To have reality we must live it now, here and as it flows. Without it, we merely shadow-box Grasping the real of the now is the greatest of any living entity's privileges. Then how we imbue and embrace it is what enriches or impoverishes experience for us, whatever else it may seem.

It helps if we've learned to appreciate, trust and value the reality that is ours to invest, rather than to fight, deny and hide from it. There is no room for self-deception. So, if you've braved meandering this far with me, come on and let's stroll further together, aware that it is simply each of our choices for this now if we make it so. I won't promise it is easy - especially that self-honesty part, but it is infinitely simple. Besides, you get to choose what to look into and to ask yourself. I have my own challenges here.

Where light fills

All the space

There is no place

For shadows.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

It casts no shadow,

Leaves no trace.

It is the moment,

Fully lived.

Eternity,

Surpassing

Time and space.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

We may

Overdo it

Or under-do it,

Too bad

We simply

Cannot - will not -

Do it!

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

"Once Upon A Time" always used to make me cry for the girl I knew as myself - 'once upon a time'. The sense of loss came over me during a trying time when I'd almost lost her and thought perhaps it was already too late to reclaim her. Life's flow had other plans, though, ~ happily.

It still touches that string in my heart to hear it. I vividly recall myself feverishly writing this in response to those poignant feelings at that moment of hearing it for the first time:

Elusive dreams - perfections

Approach reality,

Only to subside too soon.

Perfect love, the dream of dreams,

Its after-image, left behind,

Itself, now-near -

Now -far again,

Now, crest, - now-fall,

Though best, and nearest

To unfolding -

and-dearest. . .

Oh! Could it ever be?

Or - do I dream in vain

As others do?

Is truth a hollow promise

And love, an empty shell

That I should let them go?

NO!

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Yes, moonlight did return to my eyes. I found the responsive

hand to slip mine into - or it found mine. . . . . Yes. . . .!

I can't promise dry eyes if you do tag along this somewhat emotional path with me. In fact, I don't intend to shield either of us from it here, because it provides the chance to FEEL our present feelings with both emotional clarity and common sense, being aware that to feel and to observe oneself feeling is enormously freeing as it releases fullest wholeness.

I understand, though, if you decline. I'll never even know.

There is no escaping it.

What's here is here,

Though non-admitted.

And there is

Something here

Which may not be

Denied.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

I wonder now

If I could go back

To where I was before you

Or - if possible

How would it be?

Because -

If I should go back -

We've changed.

I've changed;

I'd be myself as I am now,

Not then.

I feel my changes, - good.

Yes, your world added its dimension.

But all is blended,

All's anew, somehow.

So when you go, -

As go you must, -

Now that it's ended,

I'll miss you.

And that, I cannot change.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Life Is

Light

And

Radiant.

LIfe,

Light,

Love.

Too simple.

Too profound.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Experience and time

Swallow up my people

All too soon.

Where do they go?

And how?

Not in my now are they,

For theirs continued, too -

Somewhere else,

Right now, alive in theirs

Though gone from mine,

Disappeared from view

Except, as this mere memory,

Seems to bring to life anew,

Alive and breathing, able to feel.

But, if so, it's away upon their shores.

Here on mine, never to surprise

With unexpected word or deed

So long as gone to theirs.

These thoughts cannot fulfill a need,

For I can experience the brand new real

Only in my ever-new eternal here and now.

I'm grateful for it, - aren't you, for yours?

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

You know what you need.

I'm happy to provide it,

Even if it's my absence.

I want for you no harm.

If my presence hurts you,

I will withhold it till you ask.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

I used to play Burt Bacharach's music on the piano frequently. Playing this one seemed to precede major changes and endings in my life. . . .

A tune,

A ride,

A leap

Into rarefied spheres.

It could not last,

Could it?

Should it?

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

I love the swishing sound

Of cars

On rain-glistened streets

And listening for

Another song of yours.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Another peek inside your world

Is more than I can bear.

Being here, imperfect, yes.

But if I compare, ~

It's heaven here.

How glad I am

That I'm no longer there.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

The progeny

Of life ~

Is ~

Life!

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

We'lll surely never hear a more feeling rendition of the song, "Feelings" than this one by amazing Nina Simone. Hearing it all the way through, though admittedly a long and demanding video, is well worth it and not easy in a way. But at the end, she does something to the lyrics so unique - so Nina Simone: - she changes them with a passionate interpretation of her own, demonstrating a premise of this hub: that attitude affects and determines how events are experienced.

Unless otherwise attributed, all design, graphics, photography and written material herein are original and copyrighted by Nellieanna H. Hay.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This material is protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from Nellieanna H. Hay.