Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Nostalgic

For some reason today I am extremely nostalgic.  For places I have been and lived, and places I have never been and never was lucky enough to experience, except vicariously.  Sometimes I think my being has been before or has lived various lives, consecutively.  I have dreams which feel more real than actual(?) reality.  I have dreams which play through my head like movies with plots and characters which seem to be not, nonsensical, but vivid and totally real.  I wake to go to bathroom and go right back into the time and place of the dream.
This morning I am carried to my pinterst page because of all the wonderful places I would like to slip my being into right now.  Like a warm rainy morning in Paris with coffee and a cigarette, sitting sheltered by an awning in front of the small shop. Or being in the Netherlands in a tiny hotel which had their continental breakfast served on the half floor above, reached by five steps.  They have a cheese platter, fruit platter,  all sorts of breads and pastries, real butter and cream and jam and the best hot chocolate I have ever had; served in large cups poured from a real silver carafe.
The Webster Hotel in NYC was visited this morning with remembrance of cuddling in the beau visiting rooms with young men I cannot remember the names or faces of. Said young men cast aside after a single but memorable cuddle. Today's youth could not begin to understand how innocent I was back in the day.  The Webster holds so many memories of the first 3 months I spent in NYC.  It was a dream come true for me and I loved every moment of my complete freedom from everything I had ever known but dreamed about from the time I was 4 years old.  A small girl walked with her grandpa through downtown Punxsutawney, and as they walked by the hotel window she said " Someday I will stay in big hotels and smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails ," And so it came to be in wonderful ways I could not have anticipated.  I have stayed in lovely old hotels all over the world and was known to have smoked and drinked in most of them, ( I know, I know, but I liked the past tense of drinked much better than drunk),
I remember the log cabin in the woods my father built for hunting.  He and a bunch of other men built the cabin for trips during deer season but I heard tell more than deer were hunted in the local bars of the Adirondacks.  But never mind all that.  My girlfriend Christa, and I, went to the cabin to stay for a week my junior year in high-school.  We took food, books and a Monopoly board set and had more fun then I would have believed possible.  We had to fetch water from the little spring down the hill and use the outhouse in the back, behind the cabin.  There were only oil lanterns and a wood burning stove.  No running water but there was a propane gas stove we could cook simple meals on.  The spring acted as our refrigerator. We would put food in plastic or glass and drop them in the little pool to keep cold.  During the day we explored the woods(Flora and fauna and all that), and at night play games of Monopoly.  We drank coffee, ate cheese, beans and crackers and had the idyllic time of our lives.  We had no phones or other devices, but we were both good talkers, jokers and loved to sing, so the time just flew by.  We vowed we would do the same again the following year but I think it was a once in a childhood experience that could not have been duplicated.
So many memories and experiences frame my thoughts today but the above is enough to give you a taste of my inner world of nostalgia..