Good morning, Tuesday. I'm feeling something I don't often feel. As in really ever. But that feeling is nostalgia and though I tend to idealize a more forward motion always moving paradigm, today I'm feeling a pull toward the past.
Here's why.
I miss things.
I miss having real American heroes. Outlaws. Like Jimi Hendrix. Steve Jobs. Amelia Earhart. Rebels. Where are the rebels and thinkers that make this country great? Where is the lunatic fringe (and don't tell me they're now white supremacists. I can't bare that)? Where are the easy riders, the beautiful dreamers, the merry pranksters? Yea, hippies. I know. But I need some countercultural movement to transcend what's happening. And it needs to be uniquely American in the best of ways. Like Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner best of ways. Think different and such. Come on out to play. And give us some hope while you're at it.
I miss not being social. Yes the irony is not lost on me I'm sharing this with you on my blog. But sometimes, well many times of late, I'm finding social media completely exhausting. I love looking at people's lives, I hate looking at people's lives. I love to know what's happening, I hate to know what's happening. It's a toss up most days, really. And sometimes, I want to retreat in my little crab shell (I am a Cancer after all) and turn it all off. I know that's an option, ps. But FOMO. Sigh. What's a little crab to do?
I miss subtlety. Of language. Of thought. Of messaging. Everything is for dummies now. Hit me over the head with your BIG SALE. Bludgeon me to death with your BEST DEAL EVER. Tell me how OBSESSED you are with that lipstick. I can't. I do it. I know I do it. Remember how it felt when you were young and you kinda flirted with someone in the quietest of ways and they knew it and you knew it and nobody else did? Yea, that. I want that. More of that. Less of THIS!!!!!!!
I miss off the beaten path. Everything seems so mass to me now and if it's not it's still too much "a thing". I know I need to travel more but truly everything and everyone is so exposed and I'm always on the lookout for a diamond in the rough. Lately everything's a bit too glimmered and sparkled. Give me some grit off the grid.
I miss decency. This one's real for most of us. I would hope. I truly and deeply and madly miss decency. With all the news of late, it's hard to wrap one's head around so much terrible behavior. Not to mention our Diablo in Chief. I can't take much more. We were once a fair, decent country who treated insiders and outsiders with respect. We treated our land with respect. We treated our allies with respect, and in some cases, our enemies. But damn. Did we ever? It's hard to remember if we ever did. But I feel like everything is so very off. I know. Thanks, Captain Obvious. I'm just pointing out that I want a return to basic human respect and decency. This seems too tall an order to summon but I want it.
So I guess that explains why I've been listening to a lot of music from my youth and reconnecting with some old friends and thinking back to sitting around the kitchen table with my parents and feeling a good bit of teenage angst, but nothing quite like this. Make it stop. Maybe it's not so much I want things to be the way they were, I just don't like the way they are now. Can we find our way out of all of this chaos? I'm ready are you? I'm still gonna listen to the Cure all day though. Just because.
And that's what's up this kinda sorta nostalgic but not really kind of Tuesday in the 212. Yours, in wanting something new, or at least a return to some good old fashioned 'merican values. XO