Blog | Everyday Practices

The outbreak of COVID-19 provoked a myriad of intriguing sentiments among my friends, me, and others, including a cringey fascination and an ambivalent kind of Eros brought on by the feeling of doomsday. These sentiments changed rapidly into sheer fear and anxiety of the sinister and unfamiliar present time (and future) and provided fertile ground for the emergence and enhancement of nostalgic feelings and practices. Nostalgia (from Greek – nóstos: homecoming, álgos: pain, ache) is defined as missing the past and clinging to it in an idealized and nonjudgmental manner. As such, nostalgia acts many times as a way to cope with a crisis-ridden reality, when the individual yearns for the past — perceived as “simple” — in the face of a chaotic and incomprehensible present.