Nostalgia

I cannot say that I have cherished my memories. In actuality, I have been in denial about a majority of them. Like the evils in Pandora’s Box, I have sealed my memories away and in no way have I dared to open the box, in fear that those evils will come gushing out and become exposed. However, the power to remember should be thought of as a special gift. For without memories, one does not have a past and days draw closer and closer, and then fade, in the coming of the next.

It’s hot. The weather’s probably in the mid 90s or even higher. Sitting in car, I fiddle with my fingers and enjoy what little amusement I have at my disposal. Suddenly, a thought comes to mind; damn, I forgot my IPod, I say this thought out loud. My parents are busy talking with each other in a foreign tongue. I understand all of what they’re saying but what does that matter? “Damn, I forgot my IPod”. I go back to fiddling with my fingers again. Uninterested, I become acquainted with my environment. I look generally at the cars ahead, behind and to the sides of me. “There sure is traffic today”, I think to myself. I then roll down the window, in response to the heat inside the automobile.

I stick my head outside the car window, for no reason what so ever, I just do it. Nike, “just do it”. But as I do this, a strange phenomenon occurs; something has titillated my nose. “What is this sensation? What does it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?” I ask myself in a scholarly tone. My mind jogs to remember this titillating odor, honestly, from “whence did it come?!” oh twisted fate, how dare you throw such a titillating odor my way? Because of this odor, I am at a loss for words. I can only use the verb titillating so many times before it gets “played out”. I take the whip out and force my mind to remember this familiar odor or as the French would call it, Odeur.

Tired, sweaty and panting, my mind responds, Africa. Africa? Could my mind be any vaguer? But reaching the term helps. Africa is the first step into finding the deeper meaning and secondly, what the scent is. I think even harder and back and casually snatch a memory out of Pandora’s Box.

Hand in hand with my mother, engines snarl and trucks honk, we walk through the road to get to the other side of the street; Lagos, busy and loud in every sense, carbon emissions rising into the air and the people working and talking. I sniff the air and cough. I proceed slowly out of my memory, so I will not startle my brain. But voila! I have recognized the scent, it is, gasoline; titillating in every sense of the word. I have now returned back to my seat in the car. Such a strange journey of words it took just to reach the conclusion; so strange that I was ejected from my seat into memory land.

Memories; some locked away deep inside us but once in a while or rarely do we knock at nostalgia’s door and become reacquainted.