I'm experiencing nostalgia for the time and place I'm actually in. Searching for a word to describe it, I found the Portuguese Saudade (saw-dadi); a profound melancholic longing for the present moment, an acute awareness of the impermanence of everything - of life itself. Each moment I'm aware that this moment will never be lived again; every time I visit a favourite part of the island I'm aware that this might be the last time. It's a longing tinged with joy, though, a kind of stress-free cognitive dissonance. I am both vividly here in the moment, and simultaneously aware of the transient nature of this moment, of its passing even as I'm experiencing it. It's a facinating feeling, one I would love to hold on to, since it makes life so vibrant, so immediate, but one I know will pass, as all feelings do. I'm not the first to feel this way:
"How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present? You can suffer nostalgia in the presence of the beloved if you glimpse a future where the beloved is no more" ~ Identity, by Milan Kundera
"There are a few moments in your life when you are truly and completely
happy, and you remember to give thanks. Even as it happens you are
nostalgic for the moment, you are tucking it away in your scrapbook" ~ When The Nines Roll Over and Other Stories, by David Benioff
"It was the first time I’d ever had the feeling of missing someone I was still with" ~ The Coast of Chicago: Stories, by Stuart Dybek
