IT WAS, I know, a different time; 
 more in my awareness than 
 in any particular external essence.
Then, as now, though 
 cameras captured but part of the sights, 
 and recorders only some of the sound. 
Memory, for one my age, isn't so much 
 about bringing that old world back 
 as it is bringing it back fully to mind. 
For our recollections are always faulty, 
 but nonetheless precious for all their flaws. 
We lived near the water, in a place 
 many travel to see, but much fewer actually live, 
 as the storms are rather harrowing, and 
 the sun merciless. 
I can still feel, these years later, 
 the sand beneath my feet, and smell the waves, 
 and hear the steady rhythmic sound of the surf, 
 even though my eyes grow cloudy, and 
 my heart heavier every year with grief.
Nostalgia was originally a word for a disease, 
 one believed to be fatal.
For me, though, it is more life-affirming 
 that it is destructive;
 it is in the continuity and variety of our lives 
 that our stories have meaning -- 
 even if only, primarily, to us.