Scrapbook collage of old family photos

Anemoia

by Lee Zanello
Reading Time: 6 Mins

I have always been a storyteller.


Now, not to re-open any of the recent debates, but consider this post above a prologue of sorts.

When I first was notified that I would get the chance to host the #vss365 community, I was ecstatic. I have so thoroughly enjoyed the last couple of years participating daily in the writing prompts that I felt this was a high honour indeed.

My initial thoughts were to take the opportunity to shine a light on a community I have come to adore.

My word choices would be inspired from those that I regularly read and I would shift some of the spotlight shone on the host onto so many other deserving writers.

Then, an interesting thing happened offline: I was given a manila envelope containing a number of pictures that I never thought I’d see again.

Pictures have always been important in my family.


It became clear to me that I’d been avoiding writing about something for the last eight months…


I have always used writing to work through difficult times, hard emotions, life lessons, learning and loss.

But I hadn’t yet done so about this.

Not only that, but my writing over the years has focused largely on the idea of found family, chosen family. I’m a firm believer that the family you choose is just as important to you in life as the family you happen to be born into.

Still, I have not written often of my own family, of my own memories.

The timing of becoming a host and being handed these pictures was not a coincidence; when the universe shouts this loudly at you, I’ve learned to listen.

And so, I dove into some of my oldest memories, and the word choices followed.


I wanted the words to be simple, everyday words and, as host, I also wanted to ensure that the words chosen had not been used before, something that the recently shuttered #vss365 archive was able to assist with.

And as I moved through the posts, composing each daily, I revisited where I was at in my grief.


A good friend asked me towards the end of last summer where I was at in my grief, and I know there are the stages etc., and could have come up with an answer, but at that point, so stuck in it, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where I was at.

I said to him – and I wrote it down after – “I can’t tell you how far along I’m at in my journey because I don’t know yet how it ends.”

What I now think I meant by that is that I hadn’t gotten to a place where I could tell my story.

And yet, what is my story, really? What are all of our stories?

Our stories are memories, but most of us don’t remember things exactly as they were. Time, experience, desire, fear… these things combine to help fill the gaps that naturally exist in memory, so that your final memory, your story, is ultimately not 100% the truth.

There is no malicious intent to deceive, but retelling our stories by the very nature of how our minds work means there is some fabrication.

“Lie” is the stronger term.


And maybe there are details you intentionally leave out, filters you still have in place out of fear that those who are reading your story will not understand, or will think less of you, but the more you can share, the more you can remove those filters and put yourself out there into the world, into a space of vulnerability, the more you will connect with those who actually get you.

And that is how you find your chosen family.

I’ve been doing this in my life for years and have surrounded myself with amazing friends who have now become family to me.

I’m blessed because, as shitty as it’s been the last fourteen years to be estranged from my parents, I’ve actually had more support and love around me than in the fourteen years before that.

But, as this journey as host (and this envelope of pictures) has reminded me, I have some pretty amazing blood family as well.

And where my mind took me was back to a time when all I knew was family.

When my grandparents were alive, their house was everything. Sunday dinners nearly weekly, with all the cousins, aunts and uncles who could make it on any given week. Football games in the backyard, birthdays celebrated, roasts carved.

Sitting around the living room, in an actual seat if you were lucky to get it, some sport or other on the television, just talking, telling stories.

Darts in the basement, playing bartender.

The rose-tinted memories of youth, where the world’s problems were not yet known to us kids.


These pictures scratched at my brain and dug up this old version of the word “family” that I once knew.


After Grandad died, Nan stayed in the house for another seven years as we slowly lost her to Alzheimer’s.

Still, the house itself brought us all together. We came together regularly, though a little less often than before. Cousins grew older, had jobs, other commitments. All our own separate family units started forming our own traditions. We had our own separate dramas.

Pictures came off our fridge, then were put back on after apologies accepted.

But all throughout we were all there for Nan. She held us together.

When she passed, the glue she’d given us came unstuck, and the bad things that had always been there got worse.

Physical and substance abuse, mania, mental health issues, deception, broken trust, lies.

The bad years, as I’ve come to know them.

But without going through the bad times, without loss, it’s easy to simply not appreciate the good when you find it.

If life is all roses, you’ll eventually find the scent less pleasant.

The gift that the bad years has given me is that I now lead a life where I appreciate the love I have around me and the family I’ve built. I’m determined to be a better parent than mine were and to inspire my daughter to be a better parent than me, should she choose to be one.

I appreciate my chosen family and have found again the fond memories of the family of my youth I have not acknowledged out loud for so long.

And, still, there are two more words to come.

The host’s work is nearly done.

Every summer for my birthday we would go to Centre Island; not the amusement park, mind you, but the free stuff – the swimming pools, hedge maze, trails and beaches. It was a cheap day out for the family and it was always an adventure.

In checking the hashtag history, the word “swim” had only been used once before, on July 14th, 2018.

My birthday, which was when this picture was taken, 34 years earlier.


Which brings me to now, the end of my hosting journey.

The end of two weeks where I unnaturally wake up of my own accord at around 2:30 in the morning in a panic to check twitter, not trusting that the scheduler did its work (which I’ve done again this morning and have spent the last two hours writing this account).

The end of two weeks where I’ve shared more about myself than I have previously on my only social media account where my followers are mostly strangers, strangers who have been kind, welcoming and supportive for a long time now.

And the final word for the hosting run is also the title of this post: anemoia.

On its surface, anemoia means a nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known. It would more regularly be attributed, for example, to a young person with a love for the 60s, who listens to the music, wears the style, dreams of what life was like back then.

Check out this short article from the BBC for more.

But underneath the surface, if you dig just a little bit, think back to what I mentioned earlier…

We remember things inaccurately, and so the time and place that exists in our memories was never really how we remember it. Nostalgia has played its part and, while our stories are what we remember, they are not necessarily what we once knew to be true, not one hundred percent.

Our stories take place in a time and place we have never really known.

All we can do is tell them with as much integrity, authenticity and good faith as we can.

We all have stories; this has been mine.

Thank you for reading.

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