Tag Archives: nostalgia

“And I’ll Be Damned If I Cannot Dance With You “

Today is “Texas Hold ‘Em”, the seventh track on Cowboy Carter. Through each of my three listens, besides restraining myself from dancing in this very public space I happen to be writing in, I found myself wanting a good time. The good whiskey-guzzling, tornado-escaping into a dive bar time is something I may never have but it’s not the point.

I was nostalgic for the time where my friends and I used to dance at a bar over the state line in West Virginia because it was the closest thing we had to a club. Drinking and dropping it low and backing it up and laughing and slow dancing with our friends and crushes. A time was had.

I don’t crave that exact experience again but I am so damn happy I had it. I never have to wonder what it was like to have the “red cup kisses.” We didn’t do it for the gram or to be seen because not a single picture was ever taken at that club. We did it because we needed the release.

As I am writing this, I am realizing that is what never changes.

Needing the release.

Sometimes, the “you” in “And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you” is me.

Sometimes, that is all the release I need.

Nostalgia

This weekend I watched “Star Wars” for the first time. I don’t shun sci-fi at all but I was never drawn to that particular franchise (I grew up in a Star Trek household). I may not have fallen in love with it but I tried to see it through my husband’s eyes. He was a child when it came out so while the technology and the acting made me cringe at times, he must have seen nothing but magic and heroes stretch the fabric of reality and his budding imagination.

It was a sweet reminder of the power of nostalgia. I can instantly connect to how I felt  jumping rope in my cousin’s backyard on Long Island, pouring over the pages of “The Baby-sitters’ Club” books, dancing to Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul in our living room and watching with bated breath to see if Whitley and Dwayne were finally going to get together on “A Different World.”

I love that I don’t care if any of it was perfect. I didn’t want flawless. I wanted fun. I didn’t know it then but all I needed was simplicity. Laughing hard until the breath sputters and there is guffawing. Pumping the volume up to dance and sweat. Turning the pages, losing myself in hours of uncomplicated storyline.

I hope to reconnect with more of that..the simplicity. Fondly remembering what was is beautiful but being able to carry its essence with me now–in the present moment–is priceless.