Nostalgia Inducing Weather

It’s a regular day and I’m in the regular field walking the dog.

As I reached this far corner of the field I turned and looked across at the sky and felt a feeling I often have. There was something about the weather, atmosphere, light and temperature that reminded me very strongly of going to secondary school on winter mornings. I took this photo today at 08.36 January 13th so I guess that would have been the time I’d have been getting off the bus to walk along one of the main roads in Weston super Mare towards my school. I can remember the low dark sky, oppressive but somehow comforting too.

The feeling I had this morning, was like butterflies in my stomach as if I was excited but looking backwards through time. It was an excitement of remembering that those weather and light conditions had given me the same feelings earlier in my life, like a connection to the past. When I had those feelings at a younger age, was I feeling the excitement via the weather and light, towards the future? Was I now walking in the field with my dog and somehow directly connected to myself as an 11 or 12 year old walking to school as if on the same day?

I wonder if anyone else experiences weather, light and atmospheric conditions stimulating memories and nostalgia? It’s similar to the way smell can instantly take us to a very specific memory.

I enjoy these experiences but it isn’t just about evoking memories for me. I’m interested in the catalyst being nature. Sometimes I find myself looking across hills and the experience of seeing far into the distance gives me a similar feeling of butterflies in the stomach and an excitement about something. I can’t really define what that something is and I don’t know if a word exists to describe this feeling.

I wonder and have always wondered, what is nature communicating? What I felt this morning and feel often when I am out in the landscape, was an energy that came both from within me and without me and the communion of the two. This morning I felt comforted and reassured but energised at the same time. Like something bigger than me was making itself known. It’s quite thrilling really.