A photo to show this actually happened.
Two weeks ago, at a tiny, footprint-shaped lake near Mt. Bachelor, we found ourselves picnicking with over 100,000 Cascade frogs. As we stepped near the edge of the water, the pond rolled in a black wave of flapping polliwogs disturbed by our footfall.
You can never feel truly alone in the wilderness.
And then there they were, framed by the deep lines of woods and lake – after three years, eight days, 10 hours and 43 minutes on family rancor (but who’s counting?) – my boys, helping each other. My 5-year-old was showing his brother how to hold a tiny, slippery frog in his hand so he could keep him cupped inside but not crush him. My younger son: listening patiently and following his older brother’s lead. The frogs jumped around their feet in primal flight mode.
My boys crouched down together and snatched two tiny frogs out of the grass. My older son dropped a half-inch long slimy frog into my younger son’s soft palm, and in the crisp sun of an Oregon mountain summer, the world stopped for me.
I got that feeling again. It’s a feeling I can’t help but notice more and more in these hazy, long afternoons of summertime: Nowstalgia.
Nowstalgia is what I call that split second when I can sense that a memory is being created, and instead of being happy for the calamitous beauty of this moment, I’m already nostalgic for how much I’m going to miss it years from now. It’s a truer version of the term bittersweet, an idea far better for capturing how quickly a life passes and how intimately we feel the passing.
Nowstalgia. It is the tinge of melancholy that seems to come along with every moment of joy for me. It’s the part of me that can’t seem to let me get completely swept away in what is happening before my eyes. It’s the sadness in happiness — the knowledge that even though I can tell myself to lock a moment into my long-term memory, the past has shown that I just don’t work like that.
Fact: My memory is the worst kind of paper rubbing of what happened. Even with a photograph I tend to remember only how I felt about things. Every time I tell myself to commit a moment to memory – remember this moment! – it is gone within a week.
If I were chasing happiness I know I could just sit back and relax. Nearly every day there is a new study or book or article confirming that happiness is found in the moment, in accessing the NOW (thank you, Eckhart Tolle), or in reaching the flow state of activity that allows time to slip away and perfect convergence with the presence.
Life is painful enough, you say. You don’t have to go and live your happy moments as pain, too!
But when you’re someone who feels deeply, it becomes difficult not to see even the brightest moments as some blips within a grander context. The children will grow up, they’ll be fighting again in a minute and we’re all going to die someday.
My husband says I’ve been waxing nowstalgic since he met me in 2001, but I haven’t yet determined how long I’ve been feeling nowstalgia’s tug. I don’t know if it’s something that deepens when you have children, or have read too many books, whether it’s just something you’re born with that gets more prominent with age or whether it’s just a writer thing. But I do know that by identifying the feeling with this very silly word I’ve been able to accept it as something odd and beautiful when it appears.
The Cascade frog is endangered — you can remove them from the lake to the tune of a $1,250 fine. With Nowstalgia, I run the risk of endangering every moment of joy. I’m not going to let it take nowstalgia ruin my days. I’m going to let it roll through me like a tiny wave and then, gosh darn it, I’m going to go catch some frogs.
Do you have any favorite new words to describe a feeling?
Follow Emily on Twitter @emilygrosvenor!
Nowstalgia, is it? It’s a good word for that feeling. I know it so well. It is at those moments of joy that I am closest to crying, that I can feel my heart almost shrinking in the knowledge that the moment won’t come again and that they are but fleeting. Thank you for giving it a name 🙂
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Naming things really makes it so much better, doesn’t it? Now if I only had a word for that moment when I realize I’m in the wrong but am not ready to apologize yet…
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pausology
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Would that be the study of pausing? How about the love of it: Philosomoments.
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Thanks Emily, lovely post. I think the good thing about your “nowstalgia” is that it means you are very conscious of those moments – they do not slip by unnoticed!
It seems a very yin/yang thing to me – the beginning of everything in the endings and the endings in the beginnings. Thanks!
Sarah ☺️
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That’s it exactly. Feel it, notice it, appreciate it and then move on to the fun!
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I love how you put that into words! Very much like the power of now through meditation!
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I can definitely relate to this. Beautiful post!
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lnairpoetry.wordpress.com
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Your word belongs firmly in the dictionary, it is honest robust and beautiful.
Catching a moment is like trying to step on your shadow as a child. Thank you for this. I can only give you ( on temporary loan ) Bletchitudes the name for vegetables.
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Can be have red too mutch books, but i think must be a genetic attitude, affect someone borne with it.
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Thanks for helping me put a word on that feeling. Beautiful nowstalgia ❤
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What a wonderful writer you are! My son, as a little boy, called them “rememories.” I’ve always loved that.
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Rememories! That’s just lovely. I adore that. How clever!
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Hi again Emily, I hopefully have created a pingback, I am a virgin pingbacker so please come over and take a look. Oh I do believe that was another word…
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Love this! Definitely using this word from now on!
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I once read an essay about unnoticed “last times”… the last time your daughter reaches for your hand to cross the street, the last time you drop your son off at the elementary school, the last time you buy a bottle of baby shampoo. Just imagine if we experienced Nowstalgia not only during blissful moments, but final ones as well. I know I would be a blubbering mess—well, except for the last time my son forgets to load his wet clothes into the dryer. I would be okay with that “last time.” Thanks for your perceptive post… very honest and true and something many of us experience, albeit silently.
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Thank you! I’m already feeling these last times as well, though I don’t have a funny word for them… My son keeps telling me he’s never leaving home. That will change, too 🙂
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I love the musical group Boards of Canada for the feelings of 1970’s and 1980’s programming they inspire through their vignettes and samples of children’s programming. I was born in the 1980’s and became cognizant of the world around me more so in the early 1990’s… but what stays with me is a lot of the things one is primarily immersed in when one is a child… including PBS programming like Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, and so on. Those moments of realization and learning continue with me throughout life, but initial discoveries and moments of experience life passage points are dear to us later in life. Things become more complicated and dynamic as the years pass. Some of the new horrors that happen in life, when we begin to say “Wow… have things changed!”… they, at first, evoke a sense of nostalgia. Then, later in life, they may also become moments of nostalgia. I remember being on vacation with my family as a child and watching the Waco stand-off. My feelings of fun and togetherness on that vacation and wide-eyed wonder at what was going on with this religious cult in Texas, contrasted with what my parents must have felt about this occurrence as being contrary to what they grew up seeing… it demonstrates a sort of nostalgia in transition.
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Interesting. Waco is giant in my memories as well, and watching “Fixer Upper” on HGTV these days I always have it in the back of my head. I’ve been introducing my kids to Reading Rainbow latley. What strikes me now is how interesting the nonfiction segments are. But I don’t remember a single one. I only remember the stories, like Bringing the Rain to Kapiti plain. My memory is a wonder.
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Reading Rainbow was a big one too. I remember the book review segues, with their cheesy transitions and descriptions. The only book I specifically remember featured on the program by name was The TV Kid. Looking back, it’s a interesting reflection. The book was about a kid who finds escapism in television. In a way, that was a lot of us. This just seems to have a, interesting meta-element.
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How about Persistiolous?
A medical term for Persistence. As in, Ya I missed work for three days, home with a bad case of persistiolous.
Chris
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This word goes into my dictionary 🙂
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I didn’t know what to call that feeling, but I suppose I’ll be using this word!
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Reblogged this on akbartuncer and commented:
Doğa insan olmadan olur, insan ise doğa olmadan asla yaşayamaz.
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Reblogged this on Davie Mac and commented:
Nowstalgia: it makes perfect sense to me.
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Great article. It’s a feeling I’ve experienced my entire life and now I can give it life by associating a word with it. Although language can be very limited when feeling something you have so vividly described, I felt a sense of relief knowing that I’m not the only one. Thank you
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Totally relate to this. Gorgeously put. In the midst of life, we are in death.
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Nowstalgia. What a great word! I especially relate as a parent with a 5 year-old and almost 3 year-old. Their childhood is going by fast and I try to document some of the memories we are making, but I am forever not wanting to miss the now. Thanks for giving the feeling a name.
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Brilliant. I’m a fellow “sufferer” of Nowstalgia, especially when it comes to my own children (two girls 2 and 4.) Thanks for defining it so well. Following! 🙂
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Thank you for adding a new word to my vocabulary and for associating a word to a feeling I’ve had too many times as well.
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Stunning post, great story! I’ve just started my own blog too. It’s all about books and a chance for us all to read together, take a look at https://darrensharpewrites.wordpress.com and follow if you find it interesting! Many MANY more to come.
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Beautiful post Emily. Going through your post, I remembered how many times I have felt the same. Like when my daughter offers to prepare tea for me and while she is there in the kitchen, I just watch her and think, I will not get to watch her like this once she is off to College in some other city.
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Great new word for living well!
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You’ve invented the perfect word to describe that feeling ! 😀
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I love this and created a pingback. Happy weekend. And Thank you.
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Love your post. I have just started blogging on WordPress about happiness and trying to find it in a hectic world. Bit of a different tone to your writing but you might like my first post.
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I really like this post. Thank you so much for writing it, I experience this too. I am bummed that I cannot seem to remember a lot of the important “memory making” moments I experience with my kids.
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My junior year of college was spent studying abroad in Florence. Almost every moment of every day I was there I experienced what your beautiful essay described. 23 years after I came home I now have a word for it. Thank you.
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I came across this post and found much comfort as a mother you often wonder if it is the fear of your children growing too fast and having wished that you had documented or recorded every last minute…or is it truly like some people think….that I never grew out of that overtly sensitive child that is found crying in every photograph…you have given me comfort that I am not the only one…and for this I thank you.
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Really good Post! And I feel Good filling. Thank you for your contribution.
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What a great word! We’ve all finally got a name for that feeling you’ve described so well.
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Nowstalgia – that’s an awesome term!
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Beautifully written! I’m only 21 but I find myself being nowstolgic already! Thank you for this!
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Amazing article. I often feel overwhelmed by observing some small beautiful moments which generally remain unnoticed in this rapidly changing life. But when we realise that those beautiful moments are not going to repeat, a tinge of sadness covers our soul.. This makes us feel that evey beautiful moment is temporary. But so is the case of unhappy and gloomy moments…. Life has its own calculations.. 🙂
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Amazing article. I often feel overwhelmed by observing some small beautiful moments which generally remain unnoticed in this rapidly changing life. But when we realise that those beautiful moments are not going to repeat, a tinge of sadness covers our soul.. This makes us feel that evey beautiful moment is temporary. But so is the case of unhappy and gloomy moments…. Life has its own calculations.. 🙂 ..
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I’ve also been through this stage, but I am happy to know that I’ve also passed this stage of treasuring memorable moments so much that it hurt, that I have done away both the nowstalgia and nostalgia in one go. Now I just am able to start a brand new life without any unsorted out feelings! Is not that wonderful when you look back on it!
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Nicely written piece. Great work.
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Constantly feeling this. For me, it makes the moment more precious somehow.
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