Hello Friends!
This time of year I always get super nostalgic. It’s funny, you would think that Christmas time would be more in line with those feelings but for me, June and July always were the best time of year. It was the time of year that I got to come to my uncle’s farm, we were out of school, the Fiddle Fest happens, Fourth of July, and the sun is always up and it’s always warm.
This time of year, I am always tempted to pick up writing again. Pick up writing, Amanda, are you aware of what you are doing right now? Yea, I know, but I mean fictional writing, like a novel. All I wanted to consistently be, all throughout school, was a mystery writer. I’m not sure why, other than I truly love Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and the like. I think I just wanted to write brave and daring adventures. I spent a lot of time as a kid writing stories, and this time of year always reminds me of it because the beautiful weather in this valley was such a huge source of inspiration and motivation as a kid. I’ve joked for a long time that I am truly solar powered, and moving here has really proved it. Remembering that little girl who was so sure she was going to get published really makes me think about taking it on again, reviving an old idea or two, and just seeing what happens. Maybe it’s just a little longing for those summer afternoons on the porch scribbling away, oblivious to everything but my own little world.
It’s been an extra reflective summer for me this year so far, and in a lot of ways it’s been really good for me, a strong reminder of all the amazing parts of my life that I should be appreciating more, and it’s been a little bittersweet remembering some things that are completely different now. I’ve had lots of reminders of Seattle and the PNW lately, for example, and they are good memories, but there’s a twinge of homesickness to them too, even if I don’t really want to go back.
I often talk about the things I don’t miss from my childhood stomping grounds, and those things are very true. I do not miss the rain, or the gray, I don’t miss the traffic, or the very isolating attitude of the people there. I don’t miss the crime, and I don’t miss the defining high school and college years that happened there. Don’t get me wrong, I had lovely high school and college experiences compared to some, but those aren’t times I would particularly go back to in their entirety, even if I look at them mostly fondly.
But I do miss the dragonflies and frogs from my childhood home, and listening to the tugboats in the fog. I miss the plethora of food, especially seafood, the mountain, and the science center. I really miss my friends and the barns there sometimes, even though I know 98% of my friends moved around or shortly after I did, and the barns that I did most of my riding at have all been torn down and replaced with widening highways, park and rides, and apartments.
And that’s the thing right? Nostalgia for a bygone age is blind to the changes of time. My favorite restaurant has closed, the barns are gone, heck, the school I completed high school in has completely changed and is totally different. My 4h group didn’t get enough attendance and had to shutter when we all grew up, the church I went to has none of the original pastors, and many of my adopted grandparents there are now angels looking down. I know if I went back, there would be tears, because it isn’t the home I grew up in. And in my case, the town I grew up in, well, it’s a lot worse for wear.
I also worry that going back would be hard, because it’s the last place my mom was healthy, pre-strokes. She started having them shortly after the move, so for me, who didn’t move until a little later, there’s almost two different people, and I think some of that childhood nostalgia is just missing who my mom was. She’s doing so much better now though, so don’t worry, even in the time since I’ve started the blog she’s grown stronger and more independent.
But, whinings and pinings aside, I think nostalgia can also hit for a time or place you’ve never been. Sometimes I get almost a homesick heartache for Weiser, a town I have known since I was little, but only been a part of for the last five years. I’m not homesick for Weiser itself, I can go in whenever I want to go explore, but I think I get a little bittersweet about what Weiser was, as I see a town that needs a little extra love to get itself pulled back up, but who just doesn’t seem to have the energy anymore. I hear all these stories from the old timers about a town with lots of soul, that had events and opinions and was known all over, a town that has a rich history and earned its title as the county seat, and I wish I could have seen it. I really do. You know the movie Cars? You know that throb you get in your chest when you watch the residents fight for their little town? That, that’s it, that’s the unearned nostalgia I am speaking of here.
And I think, finally, there’s a feeling akin to nostalgia that hits when you do something for yourself that would have made the child you proud. Like what we spoke about at the start, I look back a lot at the middle school and high school Amanda, who was struggling so hard to be a decent rider, and who frankly, was in a perfectly safe, fine environment, but not the right one for her to learn to to be a horsewoman, and sometimes I wish I could show her us now. Sure, I still ride with a nervous disposition, and I get frazzled really easily. I am a lot more busted up now, and sometimes I get called into work mid-ride, but she wouldn’t care. She’d be amazed that we own horses, that we moved to a farm, that we ride bareback AND took on a rescue horse, and that we actually find peace and calm in our sport again. I’ll be honest, I still have days where I hear my old trainer in my head “Amanda, some people are just not meant to ride horses, you are not meant to ride horses” and, some days, I still believe her. In fact, I’ve heard her a lot lately, especially with Nellie. But most of the time now, I just feel bad for that little girl, who had so much school pressure, peer pressure, and couldn’t find a foothold in a sport she so loved. I am really proud of that girl for persisting so that I could be where I am now. Not just with equestrian sport, but with school, with medical stuff, with everything that just seemed so hard and now is just “life”. I don’t know what you call this, I’m sure it’s not quite nostalgia, but I think that its close. And as I grew up a little more each year, that feeling becomes more important. Who cares what others think, 13-year-old Amanda would love me.
Anyways, I wanna know, if you feel comfortable sharing, where do you find those “heavy chest feelings”? Do you long for places you miss? Times you won’t ever see, either past, future, or simply paths you didn’t take (those get me a lot with Mom’s medical stuff, lots of futures and alternatives I never had to consider before)? Do you wish sometimes you could just go back and hug your past self, child or not, and tell them they get so much better? Have you done something recently to make your past self happy?
Or am I just a highly emotional mess with too much quiet time behind a screen? That’s fine too, I’ll fully own that if that’s the case. Someone has to be haha.
A little bit heavier today, but it’s been on my mind a lot, summer is my favorite season, and some of that is thanks to the look back I get to do each year, anyways, thanks for letting me ramble on.
Until we chat again, my friends!
The Farmer's Blogger 