January 16: Fondly Remember, End of Long Week, Nostalgic Fairy Tale

Thinking about [his son] Robert, Ives would always fondly remember those evenings he spent in 1948, at the Art Students League on West Fifty-seventh Street, where he took classes several nights a week.  After a day freelancing, he'd walk in and sit in the back, his sketchbook, charcoals, and pencils set out before him...

If Mr. Ives' Christmas is about anything, it's about nostalgia.  Ives is always fondly remembering better times, happier days.  The majority of his time is spent thinking about his dead son, trying to recapture every last moment of Robert's life.  These remembrances bring him a great deal of comfort, but, in the end, they also cause him a great deal of suffering.  By trying to keep his son's memory alive, Ives is slowly smothering any chance of happiness for himself and his wife.


I'm a pretty nostalgic person myself.  There's a reason why my Christmas tree is still glowing in the corner of my living room and my favorite TV show when I was younger was The Wonder Years (aside from the fact that Winnie Cooper was really cute).  I enjoy tripping down memory lane.  The present is always so complicated, and the past was so much simpler.  Granted, I'm indulging in a little bit of what they call "retrospective falsification."   That means I'm sort of editing my memories.  Leaving out the bad parts, and focusing solely on the happy ones.  It's sort of like eating a pizza but picking off the anchovies.

It has been a very long week.  Late nights teaching.  Early mornings working.  I'm beat.  I just finished snowblowing my driveway and cleaning my bathroom.  Writing this post is the last thing I need to complete before I can put my head on a pillow.  Of course, I'm thinking of simpler times when my daughter was a toddler, how she would lie in her bed and listen to me read Charlotte's Web or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hanging off my every word.  (These days, I'm lucky if I get more than a grunt in the morning when I drop her off at her school bus stop.)  Of course, I'm completely ignoring the mental illness and sexual addiction that almost ended my marriage.  That's the power of retrospective falsification.  Every memory is a happy one.

Once upon a time, an old man lived near a lake.  The old man was so old that every member of his family had already died.  The old man was quite alone in the world.  He spent his days staring at photo albums, remembering the better times of his life.

The old man eventually died and went to heaven.  As he was standing at the Pearly Gates, the old man met Saint Peter.  "Saint Peter," the old man said, "how come I lived as long as I did?'

Saint Peter shook his head and said, "We forgot about you."

Moral of the story:   Winnie Cooper was really cute.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

See what I mean?