Dusty Nostalgia

Is that the name of a singer from the 60s?

I have been undertaking some spring cleaning (several days late I know) and coming across all sorts of stuff that triggers flashbacks. Some are so old that what is evoked is less a coherent memory than a vague yet powerful sensation - a toy catalogue from circa 1980 makes me feel something that is very difficult to describe. It is warm and fuzzy however.

Then there are more recent relics like lecture notes with some hand-written conversation that was undertaken with somebody I cannot identify. From what is written they must have been a friend but I cannot be sure who? Were they also enrolled in that subject? Possibly. But they might have just sat in on my lecture (we did those kind of things sometimes). I cannot recognize the handwriting. Here is some of what they wrote: "All cats are grey unless they are not" ... "all Daniels are grey" ... "you are silly" ... "and boring" ... "do some work" ... "write something!" It could have been anybody. I think the identity of this particular conversationalist is lost to history.

There is a lot of other stuff I have been looking over. Some amusing. Some embarrassing. Some intriguing. One of the things I notice as I look at these old drawings and notes and letters is that memory tends to layer. The original memory may still be there but it is now remembered via layers of more recent memory. The memory of what? The memory of looking over my old stuff from time-to-time. And if the only thing an object reminds me of is the act of looking at it then it tends to go in the bin now. It needs to evoke something more interesting than that (or be interesting in its own right).