Nostalgia

As a reminder for all days, good or bad, I have a clipping from a magazine on my fridge that reads as such: “Do not hope for a better past”. And I try, every day, to remember that. And along with the past that we cannot control, I also try to remind myself not to hope for a better “whatever it is we cannot control now ” anymore. But that second self- imposed reminder seems to elude me. Every day …And I keep wishing. And hoping. And dreaming …

But as the song goes … I or maybe the world seem(s) to be “out of aces”, lately, and I am left with the dreaming.

I wish for a day when work is easier and more fulfilling. When people make sense, finally, in the office building, and their demands are not just swayed by a falling economy and a shrinking industry. Or by their own frustrations that they cannot make a difference in a decaying world.

I wish for a day when I can actually get myself to believe that it will be better for us, newspapers, banks, textile industries, real estate people, etc. I wish for a day when benefits are given where they’re due and as they’re promised, not snatched away. A day with health insurance for all, and without nickling and diming everything we touch …

A day where work is more than a job and a means to pay the bills. A day where it’s not an insult to your intelligence nor personality to work for someone.

A day when more is more. And less is less! And they don’t cross each other.

I wish for a day where people won’t complain about the cost of daycare, rising gas prices and utilities bills. I dream for that day to come back where people used to go to Europe in the summer as the “cheaper alternative”.

I dream of a time where we were not thinking of the small, family-owned diner in the corner as “pricey”. A time when McDonalds was just plain cheap, not just “cheap if you ordered from the dollar menu”.

I dream of a time when people are actually looking forward to Christmas, when Christmas is indeed the brightest light of the calendar year, and not some other obligation that comes with another year of debt.

I wish for a time when they made movies like Gone with the Wind and Love Story. When they actually made art, and not filled up two hours (or more) with people simply moving across the screen looking pretty and waiting for the millions (of dollars) to drop while uttering lame lines.

I dream back of a time where I got a paper card for my birthday and a letter from my best friend – not a text. Nor an email. I wish we lived again in the age (you remember that??) where people wrote in full sentences, with full, dictionary searchable words, and not just acronyms and abbreviations!

I dream back of the time when we all read. And listened. And not just watched.

I wonder back of the time when cars only went 50 miles an hour. And the speed limit was 20 miles an hour in downtown.

A time when people didn’t drop like flies because of heart attacks! Nor cancers … When people ate tomatoes grown in their back yards, as a mainstream. And really knew how to make orchids re-bloom.

I wish for a day when people go out in the park to look at changing leaves, and someone doesn’t come out to

ask “why”.

After all, The Phillies are in the World Series two consecutive years in a row, so why is all this other stuff so unbelievable?? Just joking …

I wish for a time when people wrote truly timeless lyrics like the ones below, that inspired and moved you to your core, that opened the listener’s eyes to a life lesson and made them shiver with simplicity - not so much uncomplicated eloquence these days indeed, in our music.

As June Carter used to say, to paraphrase: lyrics that mattered:

“You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.”

(Kenny Roger’s The Gambler )

But, alas, I am a dreamer! And on and on my mind goes …

Although it would do me a great deal of good to stop dreaming for a better … uncontrollable present.

I wish for a life with more meaning. Just as much as purpose. For everyone.