Tuesday, January 4, 2021
nos·tal·gia /näˈstaljə,nəˈstaljə/ (noun) a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
Living in the Past: A Jethro Tull song.
I feel like the difference between nostalgia and living in the past is the ability to let go. And I think I really struggle here.
But I feel like a big part of that struggle is that I just. can’t. remember. So. Much. of my past.
I do think it’s 100% connected to trauma and self-preservation, but I’m so tired of it. The ability to let go is directly connected to the ability to PROCESS those memories and pain and move on. And how can you move on from things you don’t remember? From things you’ve shoved down and away to hide in the deep, dark crevasses of your brain?
This past Saturday night, I decided to take a break from MCYule, a watch-a-thon I’ve decided will be my new Holiday tradition based on this list. I’ve watched a ton of the Marvel Universe already and even did the movies in timeline order last year, but this year I decided to do the whole shebang with the TV shows added. Though next year, I’ll probably start at the beginning of December because at the rate I’m going, I’m wondering if I’ll even finish the (currently) 80 item list by summer. Good thing I’m pretty damn successful at multi-tasking.
Anyway, there’s only so much fighting, shooting, and needles in eyes before one must break. Or at least THIS person, anyway. So, I decided to change the channel and watch The Matrix Resurrections. I know, WHAT A CHANGE. Sometimes, I just don’t really think that deeply about things (another trauma protection spell I’ll likely delve into another time). I’m not going to do a full review here because spoiler alerts, but I will say I liked it. Likely, anyone over a certain age who liked the first movie will like it.
After which I followed this morning with the Harry Potter reunion special – also enjoyable. Both of these series coincide with a particular moment in my life: a move to Cedar City, Utah when I was 19. I picked up the first Harry Potter in an airport on my first plane trip ever back to Utah after a road trip home, and something tells me the Matrix was the first movie I saw in a movie theatre in Cedar. Though in my mind, I only remember that one time going to the movie theatre in CC. Is it even possible I only went to the movie theatre once in all my three years in that town?
That road trip back home was great fun, but scary as hell driving through the snowy Rocky Mountains without chains and a bunch of music equipment with my then-roommate Brian. He was going to be working in Milwaukee on a gig, and I made the trip back with him to visit home. I think I went to see my brother? I think that was the time I called him, drunk, at 3am wanting to die. Nope, that was the other time. When I was lonely, had dropped out of Southern Utah University, and had already considered myself a failed actor six months removed from the Shakespeare tour. I think. See, there’s that roadblock. Let me think for a second.
Okay. Moved to Cedar City based on the advice from a (now former) trusted source (read: complicated relationship) I’d rather not get into at the moment. This was shortly after a living situation with my mother, trauma-inducing stepfather, and two younger sisters in Indiana had fallen apart. You can read more about that here). After dropping out of college, moving back home, working in community theatre and three jobs at once, this friend/mentor/complicated relationship suggested moving to Cedar City (where he was going to be working at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in the summer of 1998) so that I could go back to school, get my desired acting degree, and possibly work with The Festival myself. So after that brief stop in Indiana for two months, I got on a Greyhound bus to Utah.
That’s right. I moved to Utah from Indiana via Greyhound Bus in July of 1998. I know July for certain because of a writing class project I still have from Southern Utah University with stories of traveling on July 8th and 9th of 1998. I’ve basically attempted for my entire adult life to keep a journal, but inevitably the words, thoughts, and memories just get locked in my head. However, particularly over this time period – from August of 1997 to the fall of 2000 – I was fairly regular with keeping and writing down moments and experiences. Also a fruitful playground for nostalgia and pain now in January of 2022.
Anyway, back to the Matrix and Harry Potter. As I said, on some trip back home I bought The Sorcerer’s Stone. I have a memory of flying from Salt Lake City to Cedar City on a very tiny, very scary plane with lots of turbulence in the winter of some year. And as I said, I’m pretty sure that flight was my first time on a plane, which I think was from Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Salt Lake City to Cedar City. Very little funds = many transfers.
But then in my photo album, I’ve found a ticket stub from March of 1999 showing Houston to Vegas. I do NOT remember this at all. Is this the second road trip to Milwaukee with Brian? How did I get from Vegas to Cedar City? Did I fly? I looked back in my journal for any of this information, but all the writings seem to be about men. Just me desperately trying to get much-desired attention from that part of the species and failing miserably. It makes me sad to read all that desperation. Another time.
Harry Potter and The Matrix were two pieces of media that shifted my perspective on art. I wanted so badly to be able to write a story like H.P. and be successful in the way J.K. Rowling was. Pull yourself up out of the depths of poverty through art. And after I walked out of The Matrix, I remember walking in the parking lot, looking around at the mountains of Cedar City, and wondering if it was all real, or just a program.
Because I was in a place where I wanted to escape reality so badly. That transition away from all I had known was really difficult for me. To take that leap, move across country to somewhere I knew no one, a place with a completely different culture, and try to fit in when I didn’t even fit in back in my homeland, was jarring and life-changing.
And quintessentially, H.P. and Matrix are two stories about outsiders. About people who don’t fit in. And I felt deeply connected to those stories and those outsiders and found a certain comfort in that. And I still do, really. Being an outsider without a home back then and hating it, to now being an outsider finally finding a home and not hating it.
Watching those pieces of nostalgia over the weekend truly put a smile on my face, rather than bringing sadness. A sign I may finally be coming to terms with some things. Moving on from the things I DO remember. I’m glad a few original Matrix cast members returned after all this time to continue the story that started all the way back in my Cedar City days. There’s some safety in that. If they’re okay with returning, so should I be. And I’m glad H.P. artists look so fondly back on the journey of those films as I look fondly back on my C.C. days, despite all the turbulence and chaos of my life up until then, and during those days and after.