Nostalgia and Memory

The previous post was written earlier this year, prompted by a picture of that red barn. Now, some weeks later, I have been to that 850N/New Richmond road corner of the world. Since 1993 I have driven past the farm three or four times, but this time it was different.
My vision of the farm reflects the way it looked for four decades, probably longer counting the years before I remember it. Gradually over the last fifteen years, buildings have disappeared: the chicken house, the woodhouse, the smokehouse, a corncrib. As new people (not Taylors) have moved into the house, lifestyles have changed. Such buildings have become irrelevant and since they are not used, they deteriorate into eyesores and hazards. But this time the barn was gone.
“But” is a big word in looking at that bare spot where the barn used to stand. It was a focal point, like a royal throne from which a king kept watch over his lesser subjects in their less stately chairs. It is not a question of acceptance; what is not there is not there. Perhaps I wanted to see the farm to feed nostalgia even though I know that I do not yearn for that life for myself now.
I am thinking about the difference between nostalgia and memory. I do not need to recover life at the farm; I just want to remember it. The older I have become, the more grateful I am for the roots that I had growing up. It occurs to me that roots are underground, not displayed on the surface. My roots are not in the bricks and boards that have disappeared; memory goes deeper than that.
I will never go back to the farm. There is nothing for me to see now. I will visit through my mind’s eye, photographs, and remember-talk with friends and family. This is not a melancholy choice because what I remember is so much richer than what is there.