Someone I met during the time I used to be a regular at morning business breakfasts told me the best decade of her life was between the ages of 50 and 60. The context of that revelation was my mention (at the time) that I wasn’t looking forward to turning 50. But, given her positive orientation—she was telling me that I had things in place to have a rousing decade of my own.

Back in January 2012, the future did seem bright enough to don shades. However, the subsequent years have disavowed me of that optimism. I think that decade for me has been a nightmare, really.

I’m not one given to nostalgia for the sake of being nostalgic. I do enjoy reading about the past, though. I’m a historian at heart and learning more about “the good ole’ days” is something I still enjoy in a life where joy has been diminished by time and tragedy.

I wrote a blog post about the past (back in the past) and I quoted a Danish author, Martin Lindstrom who wrote that consumers “in the face of insecurity or uncertainty about the future want nothing more than to revert back to a more stable time.” That would seem to be the time we’re living in. No?

When we were first told to shelter-in-place by our all-knowing governor, I was taking a class at USM centered on the Civil War and then, the Reconstruction period following a war that cleaved our country in two. Spending time immersed in reading and study focused on the middle part of the 19^th century was strangely comforting—especially when all certainty in the present had been suspended. Continue reading →