Mid-century design is no longer a passing fad. It’s here to stay. There are entire TV series devoted to conjuring up that nostalgic feeling, which most often includes a high price tag. It’s not cheap to transform a space or lifestyle into what I think you might manage to bring home at least a portion of from the nearest Goodwill. Maybe it makes a difference if you lived it in real time – if in fact you are, yourself, verifiably mid-century. Which, I might add, I am. 

Folks who’ve been around less than my six-plus decades look upon the 1950s — early 70s as ultra chic. To each his own, but truly, it mystifies me when crowds clamor for shag carpet, starburst clocks, tapered legs on furniture, linoleum kitchen tables, and mushroom-shaped canisters all set against a backdrop of wood paneling. When it was your life and nothing else was available, it seemed anything but chic. You could lose items of clothing and the family Chihuahua in that carpet.  Those outward-angled legs on coffee tables bestowed many a scar on kid shins. Our first edition avocado green Amanda Radar Range belched roaring billows of hot microwaved air across the room and was the size of a small car. 

Ah, mid-century cars. Built for first impressions and with enough room for the most prolific bearers of offspring. Our family car in which I have my earliest memories of Only Child Me flopping around the backseat was a red 1962 Chrysler 300 with fins. That flashy monster took up every inch of our single-space driveway and most assuredly did not fit inside the garage. 

Whenever little me rode up front between my parents, I stood in the middle of the half-acre bench seat and stayed alive during braking events by virtue of an adult arm or two whacking across my mid-section to keep me away from the dashboard/windshield/pavement. As the Princess of My Domain during long trips, I had the back seat kingdom to myself, spreading out with books and toys and the quilt Gram made me, pausing only to pick myself and miscellaneous detritus up off the floor after those regular braking events. Memories, man. 

I spent a lot of time in that back seat. We took so many road trips when I was a kid that I’ll bet my mom and I experienced most of the ratty interstate gas station bathrooms within an 800 mile radius of Boulder, Colorado. I’ve wondered how many times she wished I were born a boy so she didn’t have all those away-from-home bathroom duties. Dad undoubtedly happily stood at the gas pump, whistled a tune,  and thanked heaven for his little girl.

Travel bathrooms were different in the 60s and 70s. If you picture Buc’ees or a Pilot truck stop when I say, “gas station off the freeway,” then please allow me to repaint that image.

*broken pipes

*broken tile

*light bulbs? what light bulbs?

*clogged important item for which we were there in the first place

*un-rose-like aroma

*unidentifiable stains 

*overflowing trash can last emptied a previous calendar year

*metal doors that never closed right 

*powdered soap, or evidence of its previous existence

*mechanical cloth towel that lost its last “clean” section sometime during the Eisenhower administration 

*phone numbers and messages scratched into the walls rendering me unable to resist asking my mother loud questions 

*DNA from the dawn of time, though DNA wasn’t a forensic thing then – too bad

*and always The Key

From a young age I was intrigued by The Key.  You never knew how the key to the aforementioned delightful experience would be presented to you from the equally delightful guy at the gas station desk. Apparently it must have been a well-known and widespread criminal activity to steal gas station bathroom keys, because the item Mr. Gas Station would attach to the key would be some outrageously random preventative measure to keep one from doing so. We would find ourselves dragging the key by a splintery old yardstick, a chunk of concrete, a rubber chicken, an industrial-size serving spoon, a decrepit radiator hose (or its close relative, the hubcap), or once even a headless dolly (that one stuck with me). Not sure if I dreamed it or if we also experienced a taxidermied vermin. Maybe the health department stepped in . . . nope . . . don’t think they were even remotely involved. That key, that glorious and heavily crime-proofed key, was the one redeeming factor of gas station bathrooms. I should’ve taken photos with my phone. Wait. Scratch that. 

One steamy summer day, in a particular hurry to depart the vile, dimly lit confinement of a WaKeeney, Kansas potty stop, my mother accidentally zipped my kid belly into the fangs of the zipper as she inserted me back into whatever one-piece mid-century style jumpsuit I was wearing. Still screeching loudly from the near death experience, I was pulled by the wrist out of the gas station bathroom as her lips moved silently (praying  to ward off bacteria? using those words I  wasn’t supposed to know she saved for special occasions?), and stuffed into the car where the drama undoubtedly continued. You can’t buy memories like that.

Seriously, even now, more than half a century later,  I can close my eyes and be on one of those road trips, in one of those marginally squalid interstate bathrooms, and sigh contentedly at the notion, grasping the key in my hand. Once in a while I run my hand across my mid-section to search for what should be a significant zipper scar. Hmm. Nothing.

Flashbacks like these make me miss those days.

I do not, however, miss mid-century decor. Not even a little bit. “That’s not in my sweet nostalgia bank,” she said, rubbing her 50-year-old shin injury. Hmm.

Nostalgia. 

It appears unexpectedly.  Its contours are as varied as the people it visits, colored brightly at times, dimly at others, and with the heavy weight of regretful gloom if we let it. It affects individuals in specific ways. Nostalgic triggers can be activated by sight, sound, smell, or touch, with even the slightest glimmer carrying great weight. Nostalgia is a friend . . . or a beast . . . or a combination of the two.

Not everyone spends much time looking back, but certain folk, when they do, are able to savor the positive moments of recollection and move on, putting their past in the past, and can often manage to employ this tactic with their negative memories as well.  My dad was good at this. This can be referred to as “reflective” nostalgia. Its adherents, whether intentionally or not, have the ability to close doors, enjoying sweet remembrances but not longing to return to them, reviewing unpleasant others and putting them away. It’s like Dad used brick and mortar to wall off the portions that needed stashing.

Other folk, more sensitive or sentimental, live their lives deeply steeped in nostalgia, reaching back wistfully for something or someone lost. It can be a nearly constant dark aching message of, “Your best days are behind you.” They speak their nostalgia in nearly every conversation. Brick and mortar are non-existent. Even when attempts are made to utilize these “tools,” the protective constructed walls turn to mush, exposing nostalgic scenes on relentless reels with no way to stop them. I wonder if a feeling of guilt at putting memories aside long enough to function in today’s world has something to do with this. Guilt is certainly a rotten friend and I wouldn’t put it past him.

I have found my own experience with nostalgia, the Looking Back, to be a risky place at times. It can be comfort, joy, or even comedy, but within its enveloping embrace of memory there is often a line easily crossed into suffocation. The sweet idyllic remembrances enfold my tired mind and aching bones so well, so completely, that I crave their visits like medication. The sometimes pain of living in a world I do not always understand – nor have I asked for – can leave me yearning for the drug of the past, those rooms and people and ways and simplicity and uprightness and picnics and old cars and road trips and hot tea with cream and sugar – they call to me with their easy warmth. But it’s a double-edged sword. I want to remember. However, the slippery trap it can set for my mentality is precarious at best. This sort of tendency is an example (simplified) of what psychologists would refer to as “restorative” nostalgia, craving to return home in one’s mind to actually rebuild and restore the past. 

Case in point: Over the decades since both my parents died, I have sharply honed my minimalization skills due to what I was faced with at their unexpected deaths. However, I have kept a few items that make no sense whatsoever other than for their transportative nostalgia triggers. Do you remember what a “train case” is? I have one. Ladies would use them for their makeup and toiletries while traveling. Mine is a white Samsonite with a light blue lining and it sits high up in the closet dutifully collecting dust. It is empty. I do not carry it on trips. I do not use it to store treasures. I will not pass it down to my children as they will see no sanity in it. What it is used for is this: the smell. From the top of my step stool, I haul it off the highest shelf every couple years and open it up and sniff it.  It has retained the aroma of my childhood and memories of journeys taken – sort of magically.  It’s not in anyone’s way and I am keeping it. There’s a note inside to toss it when someone finds it “later” if you know what I mean.  All I need is a bi-annual sniff. So that’s okay, right? I’m just reminiscing. No need for brick and mortar. Right? Right?!?

Reminiscing takes on the personality of the reminiscer.  An elderly friend of mine lives her complex, painful nostalgia daily, moment by moment, and leaves me wanting some sunshiny up-to-date positivity when I spend time around her – a good lesson for me and one I hope will carry through to my own old age. It’s not her fault. I could bestow upon you multiple paragraphs about the twisting, winding road that got her to that place, but suffice to say her mind is full of traumatic memories and verbatim conversations on a repetitive reel-to-reel. She is not aware of this. But she deserves a listening ear and an honorable golden age so I recover by sitting in my car after a visit and cranking a Spotify playlist to gather my wits.  

It’s a risky game, this nostalgia business, one we open the lid on more frequently as the years pass. It’s only natural. And it’s okay. When you cross that invisible median where the majority of your life is behind you, the past becomes where most of your stories are, just waiting to be summoned up for visitation by a passing sound, taste, touch, or smell. It becomes your choice, though, whether you do that in a spirit of momentary enjoyment before moving on, or if curtains close,  music changes to oldies, and the recliner becomes your best friend for long sessions of ruminating.

Ruminating is different from reminiscing. And they’re both tangled up in nostalgia.

So where do we begin to find a balance between enjoyment of wonderful treasured remembrances and the immobilizing inability to live in the present? Here are some takeaways. If they seem impossible today, try again tomorrow. And then again. And again. It will make a difference to you and to your family and friends. You can do it.

*Stay grounded in today. Eyes ahead. If you are a follower of Christ, what lies ahead is all ultimately good. You’ve had good days and bad days in your past. You feel nostalgic emotions about them all. Do you know what they all have in common? They’re over. I say that not to be harsh, but to point you/us/myself straight ahead.

*Accept that you cannot change negative past. It was what it was and it is over. If the “brick and mortar” imagery helps you, use it. It sounds oversimplified and maybe in some cases it is. I challenge you to try it on one simple but yet negative memory.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

Isaiah 43:18

*Be wary of advertising and social media that steers you toward “the good old days.” Enjoy a reel or two and move on. Shake your head until the cobwebs scatter. It’s just that easy.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2:8

*Make new memories. This takes work. It can seem “fake” at first if you’re not used to being intentional about it.  Still, you must try. Your influence on those around you who may need a boost out of a nostalgic rut might be eternally significant. Read that last sentence again.

… a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance …

Ecclesiastes 3:4 (please read all of chapter 3)

*Steep yourself in scripture. If you do not own a Bible, do your best to acquire one. If you are unfamiliar with the Bible, its two main divisions are the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you’re not familiar with its Good News, start with the Book of John in the New Testament and then switch back to the Old Testament and read through the beautiful prayers in the Book of Psalms. Seek out Christian friends. Seek out Jesus. For today, here is a scripture from the New Testament:

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1:19

 Oh, by the way, my mother’s train case is starting to lose its smell. Either it’s the after effects of last winter’s Covid on my olfactory or I’m starting to get over the need of it. I’ll climb up there in a few weeks and check it out. It might be time. 

I’ll never lose my fixation on mid-century highway gas station bathroom keys though. Guaranteed.

But still . . . eyes ahead.

Much love,

MM

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13a-14

P.S. (and I hate that I have to include this)

Nary a word of what you see on Beyond Lashley Lane has been painted with an AI brush.

It’s all Yours Truly.

For what it’s worth.