Natalie
Hey Bec. I have a new poem for you.

Rebecca
Oh, yes. Don’t ever stop bringing me poems, ok?

Natalie
Ok. Well, this one is called Knoxville, Tennessee by Nikki Giovanni. She starts the poem off saying, “I always like summer best,” and then goes summery focus — like barbecue stuff, and church sing-songs. But then she ends it with these short lines:

“and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep.”

Rebecca
Aww. That makes me nostalgic for grandma, although I don’t know that we ever went barefooted with her.

Natalie
Probably not, actually, I don’t think that we did — no, maybe. There were a couple of beach runs. But anyway, we were little. But that’s exactly it, that’s what this whole summer series for this week is about: nostalgia.

So for me, nostalgia and summer really work well together because I’m often moving, as you know, at a really quick pace, and the heat of the summer slows me down. And so instead of being annoyed about being slowed down in the heat, I’m trying to reframe it and look at myself as being given and gifted time to ponder things — like to remember things. In the Giovanni poem when she remembers her grandmother and then associates the warmth of that grandma with falling asleep in bed, that just made me have a memory recently of grandma, when she was nearing the end of her life, and all she wanted to eat were those grocery store macadamia cookies. I would go over to their house and cut her nails, and — do not know? I went over to their house, I’d always be going over to cut her nails or trim grandpa’s ears, because I was like their esthetician, and then they would always have these cookies on the go. But they weren’t for grandpa — those were fully for grandma.

Rebecca
Yeah, I vaguely remember the box. Was it kind of a reddish box — or was that the shortbreads?

Natalie
No, that was shortbreads, you’re right. That totally was the shortbreads, which I think were for grandpa. But I think grandma wanted hardcore sugar or something. So these were in those plastic, hard-to-open containers.

Rebecca
Oh. That is a really warm memory. So is that really the first thing on our list, then, for our summer list here — is that we are indulging in warm memories?

Natalie
I think so. Do you have any?

Rebecca
I have lots. Can you imagine, if you don’t have any warm memories — that’s a whole other thing, right? Nat?

Natalie
Yeah, that might be another podcast episode, actually — to unpack, for somebody to come in to talk to us about it. But let’s just stick with the warm memory.

Rebecca
Yeah, the nostalgia — because actually, as I was preparing for this episode, I did have to go look up ‘nostalgia,’ to be like, “It’s the lighter memories, right? That’s what we’re doing here. The light.” So yes. So Wikipedia, or wherever I found the definition, reminded me that this is happy, wistful. So if I think about happy memories, something that came to mind (actually, after hanging out with a friend of ours that we’ve reconnected with because of this podcast), she was reminding me about when I lived in California, and that’s where Elsie was born, I had a blog. That was early blog days, and it was called The Girl Who Learned to Kneel.

Natalie
I loved that blog.

Rebecca
You did? I wish I had stayed with it.

Natalie
Yeah, I totally did.

Rebecca
Yeah. The Girl Who Learned to Kneel. And apparently on the blog, I did a voice note or a voice recording for Elsie where I was singing a song about giving birth to her. So our friend Michelle reminded me of this song. It was something like, “I gave birth to you Elsie, and it was hard.” It was kind of a twang — think, like, country twang. I recorded this song about my birth experience. That’s my weird, warm memory, because… who was that woman, that girl who did that, and wanted to sum up a birth experience in a silly song? It’s so… what do you make of that, Nat?

Natalie
Whimsical. It’s like whimsy, being so light and sparkly. That’s lovely. But I don’t think I ever heard that song, Bec. So that’s so interesting that our friend would remember that. I have to go off camera for a second to grab my phone, because didn’t she actually send us a clip herself?

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
Hold on. Because I have… ok, I have to pull this up, because we have a little…

Rebecca
Yeah, that night she — I just pulled out my phone, I said, “Could you tell us something about nostalgia?” Because she’s… Michelle, are you out there? You’re a very good off-the-cuff speaker.

Natalie
Yeah, she is really good, and she gave us something lovely here. So I’m going to press play, and hopefully we’ll get to hear it. Are you ready? Here it comes.

Michelle
…back to 1999, and be less guarded, more open, more willing to have deep conversations, and just be joyful. I wonder what that would have changed? But maybe the joy of getting older is that we’re alive to get to ask ourselves those questions. You know, that we survived it, we survived the youth? The kind of blinders and guardedness that we put on, maybe that’s the joy of getting older.

Natalie
What do you think? The joy of getting older is that we can look back and remember.

Rebecca
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s true. Yeah. It’s funny, because nostalgia is not… I get it the most probably with my kids. Looking at kids photos, and thinking about the kids, and really aching in a good way, I think. That’s not exactly connected to Michelle’s thing, because actually what she’s saying actually makes me go, “I don’t know if I look back with joy at how I’ve grown.” I don’t know. Do you?

Natalie
Yeah, when she said that it felt very wise, and I’ve actually been pondering it for a while. I don’t know that it was my own natural inclination. I do think (and I’ve said it before on here) that I definitely look back on younger Natalie and feel very tender for her. So if that is nostalgia… I don’t think that it is, though. So I think the sparkly summery stuff that I’m thinking of right now is maybe different than my memories that I hold from back then — of myself even. But I liked that somebody else would sum it up that way.

Rebecca
Yeah, and I think I need people like her in my life. That’s what I get from that, I would say. Nostalgia, it’s not totally easy for me. But let’s jump to the second thing on our list, Nat.

Natalie
Ok. Well, number two on our nostalgia summer list is an herby-infused olive oil. I learned this from… I was watching Instagram food videos, because Frankie and I sometimes do that at night as we start to get ready to fall asleep, and I really like this one Instagram chef named Sophia Roe, and she had a really neat recipe about heating up some garlic and herbs from the garden, and a hot pepper (like one of your crazy habanero peppers from last summer), and then actually heating it up over medium-low heat for like four to five minutes. So it’s super easy — that’s all you’re doing. But then you take it off the heat, add some salt, and then let it sit for at least 20 minutes, but she said preferably an hour, and then that’s it. You drain it and then drizzle this infused oil over chopped fresh tomatoes, and that essentially was it. She added some sliced peach or strawberry — she did currants, actually, but she said you could add sliced peach or strawberry for a little sweetness. And then you just dig in. It’s supposed to be the perfect summer salad, and to me the idea that I could make my own infused olive oil was phenomenal, because I love tomatoes and it just comes together so fast. So how is that not kind of like the nostalgic summary tastes of farm market food? I loved it.

Rebecca
Yeah. That reminds me of that Italian place up the street from us, and they make a version of that. But if I could make my own, that could be life-changing for me, Nat. Simon’s always like, “Let’s go get the bruschetta.” So if he knew about this, we could eat this every day. So thank you.

Natalie
Well, and as your tomatoes keep growing at the farm, this is going to become our new thing.

Ok, number three on our nostalgia summer list (and I’m not kidding here, thinking of the farm, but really anybody’s green space could make this happen for them) is weeding for 20 minutes while listening to a podcast. Obviously, we encourage people to use ours as their listening material, but literally throwing on a timer and doing it for 20 minutes.

Rebecca
Right, because you don’t want to wreck your back, as mom has noted for herself — that you have to be careful with weeding. So do it on a timer, and just get into it, but then stretch.

Natalie
Yeah. And the reason why I’m saying that this is nostalgically inspired is because I think that when you weed — so when your time is invested in reaching down into the earth, you’re thinking back on when things were just planted, just starting, and now all of a sudden with the weeds you’re in the midst of all of this, I don’t know, growth. Right? So it’s like being in an in-between place. I was just reading a book by this ethnographer from Australia named Aaron Jackson, and he said that this in-between space, emotionally, is one that requires real attention — that things in the past and in the future are both potentially shifted, because of the way that we react in the present. I think weeds are the perfect sort of physical metaphor for that idea.

Rebecca
Yeah. Because you really have to… well, that’s a big one. I have to think about that. But you do have to be there with the weed. So is it the idea of, “Don’t be angry at the weed,” kind of? Just receive the weed?

Natalie
Yeah. I think one could be philosophical like that, a little bit. But I think it’s more like the actual act of weeding is its own doing. It’s not just thinking of what I planted, or what’s going to come next, but that weeding is part of the process.

Rebecca
Right. I was trying to encourage… like mom was here, and she was weeding so much, and she was being a bit negative about the weeding. Like, “We’ll never accomplish it all, the weeds will always just keep coming back.” So yeah, receiving them as just part of the process. I like that, because there’s no other way. You can’t conquer them permanently. So they’re part of the journey of gardening.

Natalie
Yeah, and then getting to be with the earth, and be with your body and doing all of this kind of work that only happens for a season, because of the fact that gardening only happens for a season. So I think there’s some life-altering nostalgic kind of memory stuff buried in there.

Rebecca
Right. Yes. Yes, Nat, yes. You always cause me to go deeper. The other thing for me, I wanted to add on this list, and just to know that I was reading about writing, and the teacher was commenting that nostalgia is very particular, so you have to be careful when you try to use nostalgia in your writing, because my nostalgic moments are different than yours. So I found that interesting, just that different things evoke different things in us, so that it’s not universal. So it’s very personal, but the general feeling of nostalgia we understand. So I’m reading this book Burnt Sugar, right now — look, we’re on video, so I can hold it up. Burnt Sugar, by Avni Doshi (hope I said her name right), shortlisted for the Booker.

It’s actually a very challenging book. The relationship is this mother and a daughter, and the mother took her daughter to live with her in an ashram (did I say that right?) — basically, it was a cult that she was living in. So it’s painful for the daughter as she remembers it, but it’s funny. The character is so complicated, and she’s an artist, and there’s something about even this heavy book that it makes me think of maybe other books I’ve read that I have loved, because I do like these complicated, darker characters. So it’s just making me think: go search for your book this summer, or something intangible that brings out a pleasant wistfulness in you. It might not even be something you can explain. I don’t know why this book, there’s an element of nostalgia in it for me. It’s weird, I can’t explain it, but maybe just follow your instincts. So that’s what my number four for my summer list is: follow where your nostalgia wants to take you. Nat?

Natalie
I really love that. I have a friend (one of our Patreon subscribers, actually), she was telling me the other day that the book that she’s embarking on for the summer is from that Clan of the Cave Bear series. I don’t know if you ever read that series when we were younger, but she’s returned to it — like, somebody had prompted her to think about it, and I think it brought up feelings of nostalgia for a time when one could lose oneself in a book. Because those books are long, right? You have to invest in the time, but there’s also a lot to it — like there are maps. You know what I mean? Like, you’re in. I thought that was so fun that that was the gift she was giving to herself at that time. So people are already ahead of us on this list, Bec. They’ve already found their summer book. I love it.

Ok, so number five.

Rebecca
Number five is candy in a plastic cup. That’s something we buy from a store up here when we’re trying to have a cheap treat. And it’s kind of gross candy, but I kind of think the act of sharing this gross candy is we’re creating a nostalgic moment as a family. So I don’t know what that would be for other people, but my number five is candy in a plastic cup.

Natalie
No, I think that’s totally nostalgic. I love that. We went to see Thor the other night, the first movie I think we’ve seen together as a little trio since… what, COVID happened? And we went to No Frills to get our candy, because I refuse to pay concession prices for gummies, and then we shared No Name gummies. They weren’t even the real deal, but they were so tasty because we’re eating it in the theatre together, and we’re passing it across between the three of us in the row. So there is something really nostalgic about the candy as attached to the act, which was the time together with the movie. I remember mom getting really nostalgic about saltwater taffies, and I think that they brought up feelings for her of her summers in childhood. So I think candy calls up memories.

Rebecca
Agreed — and saltwater taffy, that’s a nostalgic one for me. Actually, if I just want to be simple simple simple, saltwater taffy — if I have a handful of that, that could calm everything down, and just go to that wistful, gentle place.

Natalie
Well, there you go, people. Five nostalgic things.

Rebecca
You can see we do nostalgia so easily. Oh, man.

Natalie
This was hard.

Rebecca
Only for you listeners. Nat, I love you.

Natalie
I love you Bec. Ok, bye.

Rebecca
Bye.

Rebecca
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