Nostalgia and It's Voices

Cookie dough tastes like my childhood and makes me think of my dear friend Gillian. I would use her nickname to save her secret identity however we never had nicknames for one another, we were nothing but our truest selves together. There is something about cookie dough that never fails to invoke intense nostalgia. To this day I can't even think about making cookies without remembering with great fondness the numerous times we’ve made them together. Even now when we need to have meaningful time together we bake surgery treats for our families. Because by the time they’re cooked we will have eaten our fill of the raw stuff no matter what that might happen to be. We have always been so real with one another, no fake persona, no false misconceptions, just real.


Cornbread tastes like Amsterdam and reminds me of my mom. My mom has always been and still is my hero, and she likes cornbread. She has made it my whole life and no one makes it better than her. (And I’m being terribly biased.) Whenever we had cornbread in Amsterdam it was the event of the evening. We would be on the edge of our seats, planning the fastest route to the cornbread for when they would call for seconds. It was one of the strangest ways we bonded but one of the most effective. Cornbread makes me cry sometimes but I love it all the same. It creates a fresh nostalgia however it is a heavy type.


Sunflowers look like a five year old me and brings my dad to thought. There were sunflowers in the upstairs bathroom of my grandparents house. They were the sole source of inspiration for the decor. Dad loves sunflowers and every spring he will plant oodles of them in the garden. And the years when we had no garden he would go looking for them all fall long. Sunflowers when I was young signified the joy of time spent with family. Sunflowers are my dad’s favorite and now they’re mine too. He loves to look at the sunflowers out in the garden and when they start to die he brings them in and picks out the seeds; some to plant next season and some to eat. There are sunflowers stune about my chaotic memories and the scent of sunflowers clings to my soul. 


Bananas look like my beloved cousin Lillian and taste like time spent in school. Their smell clings to the memories of my elementary school. Lillian’s nickname is Banana, given by my brother, she doesn’t really like it but to him it is pure love to call her as such. She loves so strongly and loves to love, to the point that it melts your heart. Her unashamed joy and love for life shatters walls and melts ice.


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