Nostalgia is a longing for a person or a place that evokes happy memories. Its an
Oasis for the soul that harbors in the center of our hearts and draws us back to the
Safe haven of our most sacred places. It contains the pull of an all familiar feeling;
Territorial as a tug boat in the sea it has the ability to transport us without notice
Across the miles of our present, into the deep abyss of our past. It is often said that
Love is always remembered by the way it made us feel, and places by their scent;
Granny's peppermint candies and mother's garlic sauce, are two precious memoirs
I often go back to my first teachers and lose myself in recollection of home. It was
An era of youthful abandon. Golden days full of spirited living and so much love.
A throat tickling ambience
of chili garlic sauce
settles over rows of Mung Bean paste
and bottles of oyster sauce.
Then clumsily
I knock over and break a glass jar
of hot curry powder.
The lady at the cash register
watches me jump backwards
flapping at the spicy miasma.
She is sixteen going on fifty.
Her disdainful frown speaks volumes.
I sneeze, and inwardly apologize
to a pantheon of Chinese Gods
for my sudden and wistful desire
for a White Castle slider.
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