Weather

[tamaranth]

Thunderstorm coming in, cats pretending to be oozing pools of shadow in the hall, utter inability to either Do or Not Do.

I want to be a character in an Andrea Barrett novel -- having just finished Lucid Stars, in which astronomy and astrology are ways of exploring a dysfunctional family's dynamics. It's not the dysfunction I want: have had some of that. It's the sitting around in a comfortable group, talking about things that aren't immediate or real or on television. With cats named Alcor and Mizah. Who probably use their litter tray.

What's the word for a nostalgia for the life you never had?

Comments

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

What's the word for a nostalgia for the life you never had?

Fantasy?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Apparently "natsukashii" is Japanese for that. Nostalgia for something which never existed.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I need this word, too.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I knew there'd be a word for it ...

[(Anonymous)]

Jamais Vu?

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Send me your thunderstorms, I want to use them!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately someone nicked our storm before it happened. Have some rain?

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Storms! Storms! NEED storms!

(I've just got back from post-dance-class-pubbing. And I see that the temperature in the bedroom is 26.7 degrees. I don't think I'll be going there very soon.)

Stoooooooooooooooorms!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I don't think we actually got one: plenty of rain (which kept me awake half the night) but no actual thunder. And lots of sticky heat. Eww.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I have the same natsukashii for huge family meals on trestle tables under the olive trees. (That's huge meals and huge family.) In truth I try to avoid having meals with my family.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I do actually have experience of those meals. Though not under olive trees. At my aunt's house in France, when I was about 10: out on the terrace, wine and moules and far too much salad. Everyone chattering incomprehensibly. And me far too young to appreciate that I was actually in a film (which is the way it feels, looking back).

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

yes, exactly..
This is why I like French gite holidays so much I think - recreation of the summer communal eating experience I never actually had with my family (at least not happily).