Remembrance of bugger all

My friend Tom Saunders posed this question on a discussion board: Ever made a sentimental journey? If so what did you learn?

My answer: No.

Many people have nostalgia for the place in which they grew up. They sometimes take a sentimental journey back to their old home towns, to the streets where they played as children, the house in which they lived. All manner of memories and emotions are reawakened by being in that place again, the place of their formative years.

I too once returned to the street where I grew up and stood before my old house. And you know what? I felt nothing. It was just a house. I used to live there and now I don't.

Many people also attach certain memories to specific songs. "Ah, when I hear that song I am taken back to that wonderful summer I spent in Paris with Marie!" and suchlike. Me, I hear a song and I think, "I like this song." Sometimes a song may remind me of seeing the band in question at a gig but otherwise I like a song only because I like the song and not because it reminds me of a happy time in the past.

I seldom reminisce about either the good times or the bad. I am bereft of nostalgia.

On the one hand this is quite liberating. I don't have any ties to any particular time or place, no baggage, but on the other hand I have never felt like I have any roots.

Tom has now declared me "The Anti-Proust".