Spots of Five

via Calphotos

We collected this for my California Flora class, Nemophila maculata. Its common name is the fivespot, for obvious reasons I think. This picture looks like it could have been a Polaroid, which is why I like it. It's a nostalgic picture, like all Polaroids. The funny thing is that Polaroids can be described as nostalgic now, about two decades after they were popularized.

It's also interesting that the word "nostalgia" can be applied to things as an adjective. If you think about it, nostalgia is a wistful feeling derived from personal memories, but when we call things nostalgic, it doesn't necessarily mean we have personal memories of the object described. Oftentimes it's nostalgic because of the way it's presented. It calls to mind a certain way of doing things, a certain way of living things.

So Polaroid-like pictures are nostalgic because they bring to mind the past. I think it's more of a collective past, not a personal one, that allows us to describe things as nostalgic.

Either way, nostalgia is a wonderfully bittersweet feeling. I forgot where I heard this (damn), but someone told me? or I read somewhere? that nostalgia is bittersweet in that we remember our good experiences, but lament that they aren't happening now.

Hm.