I went to see my mother today, and for a change I decided to walk from the train station to her place instead of taking the bus. It's about forty minutes on foot, which is more than I usually feel like. But today I did.
The route from the station to where mom is living now goes past the school I went to between 1982 and 1985. I think I've set foot there once or twice in the past twenty years, and walking past it it occured to me that there is no word for anti-nostalgia. You know, the "thank fuck that's well and truly over" feeling.
A bit later, I pondered how times have changed. This was prompted by the discovery that my mother, a former kindergarten teacher retired for health reasons, keeps an ethernet cable next to her kitchen table so visitors can plug in their laptops and use her broadband connection. Ten years ago I failed completely in explaining to her what the Internet was.
The route from the station to where mom is living now goes past the school I went to between 1982 and 1985. I think I've set foot there once or twice in the past twenty years, and walking past it it occured to me that there is no word for anti-nostalgia. You know, the "thank fuck that's well and truly over" feeling.
A bit later, I pondered how times have changed. This was prompted by the discovery that my mother, a former kindergarten teacher retired for health reasons, keeps an ethernet cable next to her kitchen table so visitors can plug in their laptops and use her broadband connection. Ten years ago I failed completely in explaining to her what the Internet was.