La nostalgie n'est plus ce qu'elle était

I was in Boston all last week, interviewing students at MIT and hosting some colleagues who were visiting from Europe, looking at some of our research work as well as that of the MIT Media Lab. The week ended with a deluge on Saturday and a brilliant day on Sunday, lots of things didn't go as planned (a ski trip to New Hampshire and a dinner with a friend both fell apart), yet the week ended well.

This was the longest time (one full week) I had spent in Boston since I left six months ago. I often fear those visits back to places where I lived. I was ambivalent about moving back to Houston in the first place. While that city has matured since I left in 2002, it's still a "wannabe" big city compared to a venerable place of both scientific and cultural excellence like Boston. But more generally, I've always faced an emotional challenge when leaving a city I love, and it seems to be related to the fear that it may be the last time. I remember feeling this in Montréal, in Madrid, in Quito, among others.

And then, some time back, I can't remember exactly when, this feeling went away. Sure, there will be a last time in every city I visited, and some of those last times must have already happened. Simone Signoret, the French actress, titled her memoirs, published in 1976, "La nostalgie n'est plus ce qu'elle était." Nostalgia is no longer what it used to be. When I realized on several occasions that I was back in a place that I had mentally said a sad "goodbye" to earlier, and so I was able to push that feeling away and replace it with a more optimistic, or perhaps just fatalistic, "until next time!"