nostalgie

In this last year, I've let myself go back to some favorite destinations, to wander in my mind's eye along familiar paths, to sit on a terrace cafe maybe with a croissant on my plate and a steaming grand creme to sip slowly, just so it can last. And I imagined a ride to the beach, or to a seaside village, with the radio set to the station called, appropriately, Nostalgie, as it plays les plus grandes chansons -- classic pop music, mostly from France but not only. I wondered if I would feel content doing such a trip now, or if that kind of a return to something familiar and loved is like rereading a favorite novel -- it's good, but not as good as it was the first time.

I had a whiff of this kind of nostalgic return today, though certainly not as adventurous as a trip to the other side of the ocean. Still, it was a return to a familiar space and I have to say, it felt even better than the other times from other years.

It happened on another hot and sunny day. The rains had totally passed us by and I know I'll have to take up watering again, rotating with a hose over to the front bed, which right now looks like a neglected space right out of a movie where everything has gone to seed and the owners or caretakers have abandoned ship and moved to far off lands, and only the occasional blooming flower will recall a past splendor that definitely is no more.

But the watering will have to wait until later in the day. This morning, after a run through the usual farmette chores...

And a breakfast in the cool, emphasize very pleasantly cool kitchen...

I go over to Madison's city pool. It opened just yesterday and on a whim, I bought a season's pass.

I don't really intend to go there for lap swim (though if this weather continues, I might be tempted), but I noticed that they've introduced a weekend morning swim for young kids (under age 10) and their parents and caregivers, to keep things calm for them. I liked that idea. Older kids are loud and they cannonball into the water and they splash each other and therefore you because you're always in their path, and I fully believe they should have their fun, but this set up for just young kids is so much kinder and gentler for those who love a tamer water experience.

I was told that Snowdrop and Sparrow were enjoying their neighborhood pool tremendously and I wondered if they'd like to go back to the city pool on one of these weekend mornings. The answer was a resounding yes and so today, the first day of this "quiet" pool time, we met up for a family morning in the pool.

I know this pool very well. It's just a couple of blocks from Snowdrop's old school and she and I had spent many, many afternoons going over to it right after a summer school day. Not last year. Covid kept us all away from public spaces last year (was it even open?), but we went the year before and one before that as well.

The remarkable thing about this pool is that it has an unusually large shallow area. It's really ideal for young kids -- they can cavort easily, without crashing into each other or reaching the deep end right away.

It turns out that Sparrow is a little shy about pools. No surprise. Covid hit at such a young age for him that he remembers nothing from pre-Covid times. We'd brought him to this pool as a baby, but not since then.

But, what's there not to love! The air is so warm and the pool is so refreshing and it's not at all crowded!

At one point, Snowdrop engaged me in some pretend play with some characters we'd brought with us and she got really sentimental about the sheer pleasure of lying in that shallow water, and I thought this was not unlike the cafe moment with that lingering cafe creme: we're going back to how it once was, only today, after tumultuous times, it is all so much better, because you know how easy it was to lose it all, and yet we were lucky, and we made it, and the family's grown and still, here we are, in that pool, lingering, like over a meal on that terrace, feeling content at just being there.

Perhaps wanting herself to prolong the feeling of nostalgie, Snowdrop asked to come home with me to the farmhouse. Sure! Lunch, lots of books, snippets of conversation about how the summer is going. And then I take her home. Yes, in a sweater. Yes, it's hot. Long story.

In the late afternoon, I do return to the front flower bed, hose in hand. I notice I'm wearing a dress Ed bought for me on one of our train trips to Perpignan (in the south of France; these were Sorede days for those who remember Sorede). And this is the important annotation to any such memories of lingering moments over a cafe creme or a splash in a shallow pool -- it's not the perfection of the place (though that cafe terrace, or that extended shallow pool on a hot morning are awfully nice) that has you going back to it with nostalgie, but it's the memory of a shared experience, where all were made happy by it.