The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily 1366: Nostalgia by Matthew Minicucci
Oct 3, 2025
Discover the intriguing origins of nostalgia, once deemed an illness in the 17th century. Explore the multifaceted meaning of 'home'—a place, time, person, or a past version of oneself. Dive into the experience of feeling nostalgic even as moments happen. Delve into the impact of technology in preserving memories through apps and photo libraries. Enjoy a poignant reading of Matthew Minicucci's poem, which beautifully captures themes of forgetting, memory, and longing.
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Nostalgia As An Illness And Longing
- Nostalgia originally described a medical illness caused by longing for home and produced severe symptoms in soldiers.
- Maggie Smith frames nostalgia as the pain of not being able to return to a place, time, person, or version of yourself.
Nostalgic In The Moment
- Maggie Smith jokes she can be nostalgic about a moment while it's happening and partly lives in that distance.
- She links that tendency to being a writer who seeks language even as events unfold.
Tech Keeps The Past Alive
- Technology constantly resurfaces past moments, making forgetting difficult and enabling instant memory triggers.
- Maggie argues our devices prevent us from escaping times, places, or people we might otherwise forget.