Quintessential

Quintessential (kwnt-snshl) adj: When the way that things are is just how they should be. A perfect state, or quality.

I could make a hobby out of nostalgia, you know. I was explaining (or trying) to explain how Hendry's are kind of obsessed with goodbyes. I won't go into my pseudo psychoanalysis as to why (mostly because I lack the authoritative education) but it has been my general observation that when it comes to change, we Hendry's tend to glorify "what once was and will never be again." It's like a sick and twisted and almost naive version of the "grass is greener" syndrome. Emphasis on the 'naive'. And the 'almost'.

And so, in true Hendry fashion, I anticipated nostalgia. I planned well for it. I took some pictures and I will now write this blog.

Because the truth of the matter is, I am finally quitting the nest. And for most other 26 year olds, I think this would be just like any other rite of passage. But for me who has left to knowingly come back now 3 times, I have built up a consciousness of all that home is to me. And all that I will really be leaving behind. And it's remarkably harder than I thought it would be. The weird thing is, when I am home I just lock myself up in my room. Like I'm pretty antisocial. and hermetic when I think about it. So it really doesn't make a lot of sense. Talking to my mom, it makes even less sense.

I have noticed in looking back, especially at my poetry, that some of my most poignant (a wonderful word of French derivation: poignant, the present participle of poindre to prick, to sting) writing I think doesn't actually involve people as the subject matter. If I want to evoke feeling from my memories, I remember. Things. Places. Songs. But strangely enough not people. My feelings are often faceless. I have written about stairwells. About sidewalks. Metros. The Walls of my bedroom. Where my car was parked when that song came on. And, as the blog title indicates, bell towers. But if the timing is right and such a place floats to the surface of my visual memory, these images can bring me straight to tears. Maybe that is where the wanderlust comes from: a longing to recapture the places that keep my feelings hostage or because the more I travel, the more those places take on meaning. The point is, I have an affinity for memories of the tangible. Of course it's the people that give the memories meaning but it's the the tangible which grounds that meaning.

And so, before leaving for Colorado in what is a huge step towards the beginning of the end, I took pictures of the tangible. Of the things that hold that which, for me, is home. And for those things, just as for home, there are no words.

SoIrememberthewaythingslooked

Ladiesandgentlementthishasbeentwothousandtenaprettygoodyear