LONGING FOR YESTERDAY
When I see hydrangeas, I’m five again and in my Gran’s garden. And I’m looking for fairies.
I remember teatime in Pietermaritzburg when we ate jam tartlets, milktart and biscuits, and I recall the scent of the gardenias in a crystal vase on Granny’s dressing table. And in my thoughts I walk with Grandpa to see him proudly pick big red tomatoes and beetroot in his vegetable garden.
At 53 these memories make me happy.
The words of the Mexican poet Victor Téran describe it so beautifully: ‘Nostalgia has hung its hammock in my heart.’
Our heads and hearts sometimes take long detours to that place where we feel safe. To the home-baked bread in your aunt’s farmhouse kitchen, the snug blankets your mother knitted from remnants of wool, family meals around the table, when we still talked to each other and weren’t distracted by social media.
Naturally the ‘good old days’ weren’t always only good.
But Ilse Pauw, a psychologist from Cape Town, says that
