this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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  • Elicit

I seem to experience intense feelings of nostalgia rather frequently in my everyday life. It's brought on by the simplest or mundane of things, like the way the sun hits the top of conifers in the morning or evening, the trilling of a bird in the distance during certain seasons or weather conditions, the way a wall clock ticks away steadily in the stillness of my home (especially when accompanied by motes of dust in the sunlight), or the smell of a running air conditioner.

These moments ~~illicit~~ elicit both mysterious and beautiful emotions, but are hurled at me constantly. While I enjoy the feelings they give me, I seem to experience them far more often than I think most would consider normal. I don't know if there is a term for this sense of hyper-nostalgia, or what (if anything) it's indicative of. Most of it is tied to insignificant moments from my childhood, like lying in the melting snow on a Spring day (the trilling bird), or sitting bored in the car waiting on my mother (the sun on conifers), but a lot of it is more ambiguous.

So I thought it would be fun to ask other people what their strongest (and perhaps recurring) moments of nostalgia are triggered and/or tied to. What are some of yours?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 49 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't mean to be pedantic, but just so you know: illicit refers to things which are taboo, illegal, or frowned upon. I think you mean elicit which is to evoke a feeling

For me, it's the sound of heavy rain on the roof. Grandma's house had a tin roof, and we lived in a climate where it rained all the time. The rain hitting a metal roof makes a distinctive sound that I had forgotten about for many many years until I moved into my own place and replaced the roof with steel. It's just so soothing knowing the world's having a fit, but you're safe and cozy in your home

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

world's having a fit, but you're safe and cozy in your home

Such a beautiful way to describe it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Diesel exhaust makes me horny.

I was in marching band, and would sit in the back of the bus fooling around with my girlfriend after games and competitions.

So now whenever I smell diesel exhaust it gives me a nostalgic chub.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you're the reason we had separate sections for genders and known partners weren't allowed to sit together

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

No, that's because you guys got caught

[โ€“] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This one is easy for me. When I was a kid, my mom made a hamburger casserole. The ingredients were fairly cheap, it was easy to make, delicious, and filling โ€“ all perfect for a single mother who worked long hours. Needless to say, we had it pretty regularly. When she passed away, my wife inherited all of her recipes. Mom has been gone 10 years, but when my wife makes it, it tastes just like it used to and takes me back to a time when, even though we didnโ€™t have much money, it was her and me against the world. Eating it now gives me a warm comfortable feeling.

In fact, Iโ€™m going to text my wife now and tell her that Iโ€™d like some for supper this week.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I'm instantly getting the Ratatouille visuals when Ego eats the dish from his childhood when reading a story like this and it gives me goosebumps. Wish I had something like this.

[โ€“] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago

When the iron curtain fell, our parents took us on a camper trip through East Germany. Since then the smell of brown coal being burned always takes me back to those days.

[โ€“] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

When I'm lying in bed and garbage truck pass pass by my house and it makes noise and sheds orange light inside my room. It reminds me of when I was little and I went to croatia with my grandparents. When we were driving at the night on Highway and there were tunnels every few kilometers, the lightning and noise was exactly the same.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

I grew up next to a stop sign in a tiny town straddling a one-lane road that by some joke of fate was the the most efficient automobile route between two points of much greater interest.

To me, the sound of a big diesel engine idling at a stop is the sound of a peaceful winter night with my bedroom window open.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Illicit- forbidden, illegal, taboo

Elicit- evoke a response, obtain

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Homophones are a bitch. I know a guy who insists that "Except" is a German speed metal band.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Lol, I feel like I should have known this one, but at least I'm better equipped for future use.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Music for me. I listen to music a lot, so when I experience something significant or memorable, I associate it to the song I was listening to at the time. Whenever I hear the song, it takes me back to that memory.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Same. Certain songs take me back to the place I first heard them, usually walking around as a teen with a discman. And now as an adult it happens with "this song = this block of the city" where I was driving and it came on.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Same. To this day I can't listen to Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado without being thrown back to 2006 cause my cousin had bought that CD on release and played it all the time.

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Grilled chicken with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. In my early teenage years when my mom was in the hospital for a long time and my dad had to work the second shift it was on my to cook dinner for me and my sister. More times than not I chose to grill a chicken in the oven and make instant mashed potatoes and add some sauerkraut on the side so we would have some vegetables on the plate too.

The chicken was great, the instant mashed potatoes and uncooked sauerkraut were terrible. Now when I do it though I make mashed potatoes from fresh potatoes with milk and butter and I cook the sauerkraut so it becomes nice and smooth.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Oh, one more thing, the smell of gasoline.

I lived as a teenager in a village and could finally be free to go anywhere I want when I got my moped drivers license. With that I had to start putting in gas into it and now the smell of gasoline smells like freedom to me.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Instant mash itself is a nice one for me. I never had it as a kid, but in my late school/early uni days when I had moved out, I discovered it.

Good times. Hard, but good.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

The smell of bay water and the sound of seagulls brings me back to vacationing at the Jersey shore as a child.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

The smell of skunk reminds me of summer no matter when I smell it

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Grew up in an apartment across the street from an end of line tram station. So the screeching of the wheels on the tram line when it makes a tighter turn does it for me.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

the smell of heavily chlorinated water. i used to spend a heck of a lot of time at the pool when i was a kid, and where i live now there aren't nearly as many pools, so it's not something encountered often anymore.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

At my old job they had these kiosks that had a printer and would beep when they were out of paper. One of them beeped at a low pitch for some reason. It always reminded me of old computer games

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

shrimp pizza smells like a restaurant i went to when i used to visit family in a foreign country

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

that hotel hallway smell. can't quite describe it any other way, but it hits hard for me

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

As a kid, we visited my grandmother often and she always had vanilla ice cream for us, and she played classical music on the piano. Now every time I eat vanilla ice cream or hear any of the pieces she played, I am reminded of our visits to her home. She had an old apartment, and all the furniture was at least 100 years old other than the baby grand Yamaha piano.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Whenever I eat at a restaurant and they have strawberry rhubarb pie in the menu, I gotta take a slice. Takes me right back in time to my grandmother.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Really bland architecture, people milling around in the sun. It describes a lot of good days in my childhood, I think.