Nostalgia washes over society occasionally, and recently we’ve seen more nostalgia for things that people have never experienced — or “anemoia.” It refers to a wistful longing for a time or events that one has not personally lived through. As I reflected on this phenomenon I unintentionally wandered into one of my own memories.
I love coffee. My first memory of drinking it is when my father would make hot buttered toast cut into “soldiers,” which I dipped into hot black coffee. For much of my life I just thought that was something my dad did for me, but I have since discovered that this is a common introduction for kids in Sweden for generations. My father’s mother was Swedish, raised in America by her very Swedish family. I wonder how many shared traditions we have here in America are actually cultural carryovers from our families’ heritage.
Anyway, when I went to college I felt rather alone, and in an effort to dispel the loneliness I explored the area around the University of Texas at Austin. At that time, and maybe even today, students were naturally drawn to Guadalupe Street, or the Drag, as it is widely known, and I followed the path of all those students before and after me. Among my earliest discoveries my freshman year was Captain Quackenbush’s Intergalactic Dessert Company and Espresso Cafe. It was an expansive name for an expansive place in a tiny shop. I remember walking into Quack’s looking for a cup of coffee, having only a vague idea what espresso was. I was overwhelmed. The first thing was the high ceilings and the pastry case, but behind those was the counter in front of an antique-looking (it may have been an antique) copper and brass espresso machine. It had tubes and dials and was topped with an ornate eagle. My best guess today is that it was a Gaggia Orione. Confused and overwhelmed, I think I ordered a cappuccino, warm in its wide white cup. I drank it and remember being frustrated at the amount of liquid. Later I would order lattes, served in clear pint glasses, giving me more of the magic elixir I came to love. They served Italian sodas and Italian cream sodas, which at the time I found unappealing. Again, later I would order them for my children, who loved them.
Quackenbush’s was filled mostly with graduate students either hard at work on their papers or drinking coffee and smoking their European or clove cigarettes, animatedly arguing with each other in their young pretentiousness. There were a few undergraduates inhabiting tables in ones and twos, keeping to themselves. Most of us couldn’t really afford these then-exotic drinks.
Several years later my then-new wife worked at New Braunfels Coffee, an espresso cafe and bakery on the main plaza, which is still open. In between more professional jobs I worked at Starbucks on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. To this day, coffee is an important daily ritual—one that I honor, to my wife’s chagrin, in a small collection of various coffee makers: antique percolators, a mid-century gold-accented cone-filter carafe, among others.
Nostalgia and reminiscing can drag us into rabbit holes, and I certainly felt the pull as I thought about that time and place in Austin—G&M Steakhouse, the Cadeau, the original and at that time only Kerbey Lane, Mad Dog and Beans, the egg roll carts in front of the University Co-op. These memories root us in time, and as we share them others may want to share in them as well, creating the kind of anemoia we see in things like Stranger Things or Mad Men. I love these memories, but I do not want to lose myself in them. I struggle to stay in the present moment and face the future with anticipation. I usually win, but not always.
In what ways do you reminisce? What memories tempt you to disregard the present—whether your own or those of your predecessors?
Image via quacksbakery.com
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