nostalgia

The new year brings a feeling of nostalgia, pronounced in the Italian way, nos-tal-jee-uh. It has a different feeling than the English word... a deep longing for past places and people, maybe a longing for the person one was then. My sister sent me links to youtubes of songs that were popular when we lived in Italy 30 years ago. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this one by Lucio Dalla. It's a song about the new year and when I was 15 I knew all the words. Hearing it again they all came back.

Yesterday I dashed to San Francisco in the rain to see the Joseph Cornell show before it closed. It fit perfectly with this mood of longing. His sensitive worlds of collage and assemblage were breathtaking. So much collage can turn into pastiche and sentimentality whereas his are exquisite portals into the imagination. One thing I was particularly struck by was how he allowed each element plenty of space to breathe and relied on the juxtaposition to create the the magic. Ineffable, lovely nostalgia.