Nostalgia

Sometimes I make myself sick with nostalgia. Right now I am nostalgic for the summer between junior and senior year. We used to fancy ourselves so wise and jaded. Now I know that we knew nothing and probably still don't. Mary and I drove my 1987 Oldsmobile Firenza to Lake Tahoe that August. The rust-gnawed car, my first, hadn't driven more than an hour in a single stretch and it must have been close to 100. As we started to make the ascent up the mountains the temperature gauge needle crept over to the red zone and even I knew that was a bad sign. We stopped in Placerville and met my parents. They popped the hood, tinkered around a bit, refilled some fluids and told us that if it started to overheat again we would have to pull over and wait for the car to cool down before we continued.

Back in the car we drove the steep grade until the needle made its way back to the red again and pulled over. We'd fling our limbs out the windows and play hangman, or MASH or Lemons until we thought the car must be up for some more. I'm sure we were forced to stop a handful of times until the road leveled and the air thinned. And I'm sure I pissed and moaned about the sweat running down my face and the lack of air conditioning in my shitty car but right now I would give anything to be back in that car.

That week we stayed in a cabin that looked old on the outside and new on the inside. Mary lined up her earrings and perfume on the windowsill in our room. I remember looking at them, at the things women keep with them to feel beautiful, and seeing them as beautiful in themselves-the odd-shaped potions and gold jewelry, the floral smells and little boxes. I would watch Mary get ready before we went out. She would follow a ritual that she had been practicing for years, that she owned.

We took an unusual amount of naps. On the L-shaped couch, I would take one leg and she the other, our feet or faces meeting inches away from each other in the corner. She dragged me to the beach, even though she knew I hated it. I would hide my pale skin from the sun under an umbrella while she tried to catch it all in a tan. Salisbury Hill kept coming on the radio everytime we got in the car and we knew even then that it would always remind us of that summer.

I wonder if Mary thinks about that trip. Or my mother or father. I wonder if anyone is half as sentimental and nostalgic as I am. I can't let the past go forgotten. I feel this nagging pull to document it so it won't get lost in the shuffle. But if it doesn't matter to anyone but me, isn't it lost already?