What a Time in Our Lives: When Nostalgia Takes You Home

This afternoon, I found myself sitting in nostalgia. Not the kind of nostalgia where you deliberately search for old photographs or put on a playlist titled “Songs That Will Make You Cry About Your Childhood.” No. This one found me. I was simply sitting there, minding my own business, when I started listening to urban Grooves from back in Zimbabwe, and then Decibel came on. Suddenly, there I was, transported. Ruva rangu dai waiziva… my flower, if you only knew. And honestly, I don’t know what happened after that because I had already left the room. My body was still wherever I was sitting, but my mind had travelled all the way back to my grandfather’s house. I could see our dining-sitting room in my mind so clearly. I could hear my big brothers playing music while my sisters were doing their hair, probably taking turns with a comb, some hair grease and whatever hairstyle was fashionable at the time. There was noise everywhere. Someone was laughing. Someone was shouting. Someone was asking where something had been put. Someone was probably being told to stop touching something that did not belong to them. And somehow, that was happiness. Have you ever sat with your thoughts so deeply that you wished the world could just stop for a moment? No notifications. No emails. No WhatsApp messages waiting for you. No one telling you to hurry up. Just stillness. Just you, sitting in a particular moment in time, wishing you could somehow bottle it and keep it forever. That was me this afternoon.

As the music played, I found myself remembering a Zimbabwe that feels so far away now. A Zimbabwe where we could be content with a black-and-white television and somehow feel like we had the entire world in our living room. A Zimbabwe where one cellular phone could belong to the whole household and everyone knew it. You didn't have to wonder who was calling because there was only one phone. And when the landline rang, chaos would break out. “Answer the phone!” “It's for me!” “No, it's probably for me!” And suddenly everybody was racing to grab the receiver first because apparently answering a telephone call was an Olympic sport. We had so little, yet somehow it felt like so much.

I sat there listening to BP yangu yakwira song and found myself thinking about my grandmother. I could almost feel her hand wrapped tightly around mine because she didn't want me disappearing outside to go and play in the mud. She knew exactly what was going to happen. I was going to come back looking like I had spent the afternoon wrestling with the soil. But children were children. We played until the world called us home. I remember the panic that would suddenly spread through the neighbourhood when we saw my father's car coming down the road. Suddenly, whatever game we were playing became a matter of national emergency. My siblings and I would look at one another, and without saying a word, we knew: “RUN!” Because Daddy was coming home. And we were supposed to have bathed before he arrived. Suddenly the same children who had spent the entire afternoon running around, climbing things, playing with friends and getting dirty would become professional athletes. We would sprint home, trying to beat Dad to the front door, because heaven forbid he arrived and found us looking like we had been excavating a mine. Those were the days.

I remember my uncles laughing around the fire outside, especially during those evenings when magetsi ayenda because there was no ZESA. There was something about sitting around a fire when the electricity was gone. Today, an electricity outage feels like an inconvenience. Back then, it somehow became an event. People came outside. Stories were told. Laughter travelled through the darkness. Someone would say something ridiculous and everybody would burst out laughing. We didn't have to create moments. The moments simply happened.

And then there were Saturdays. I remember Pinocchio playing early in the morning, and we had to keep the television volume ridiculously low because Grandpa could not hear it. Sabbath meant business in our family. There was no television. There was no running around. There was no nonsense. Sabbath was Sabbath. You could feel the seriousness in the house. And yet, somehow, those rules became part of the beautiful rhythm of childhood. We knew when it was time to play, when it was time to come home, when it was time to be quiet, and when it was time to worship. I remember Blinky Bills on Sunday mornings. I would wake up ridiculously early, sometimes around six, because apparently sleeping in was not an option when cartoons were waiting for me. Six in the morning! Who was waking up at six willingly? Apparently, little me. And I would sit there watching cartoons with the kind of commitment people now reserve for Netflix series. No scrolling. No second screen. No checking Instagram while watching television. Just me and that television, completely absorbed.

Then I think about today. We have everything. We have smartphones that can do almost everything except wash the dishes. We can video-call someone on the other side of the world. We can watch thousands of television shows whenever we want. We can take a photograph and immediately edit the lighting, smooth the skin, change the background, adjust the angle and probably make ourselves look like we were born under studio lighting. And yet, sometimes, I wonder if we have lost something. I miss the photographs. Not the perfectly curated ones we take now, where everybody has to stand in exactly the right position, someone is adjusting the angle, another person is fixing their hair, and somebody else is saying, “Wait, wait, don't take it yet. I don't like this side.” I mean the photographs where people were simply… there.

The old family albums that you could flip through and suddenly find your uncle caught mid-laugh, your grandmother sitting somewhere in the background, your siblings looking absolutely ridiculous, somebody missing a shoe, somebody making a strange face, and nobody caring because nobody was thinking about how the picture would look on Instagram. There was no perfectionism. There was just life. And maybe that is what I miss the most: the rawness of it, the imperfection, the community. The feeling that family didn't have to be scheduled into a calendar. You simply existed together. You ate together. You argued together. You laughed together. You annoyed one another. You played outside until someone shouted your name from the gate. You shared phones. You shared food. You shared stories. Sometimes you even shared the same television remote, although I am convinced older siblings had some supernatural authority over that thing.

Earlier this morning, I was chatting with a friend, and she said something that stayed with me. “Jes, I just miss those times.” I had shown her a video of one of those old children's programmes we grew up watching, and immediately she understood exactly what I was feeling. She started talking about sitting in front of the television with her cousins, simply enjoying the moment. No one was rushing anywhere. No one was documenting it. No one was wondering how it looked from the outside. They were just there. And then we started remembering the kind of childhood where you could play raka raka and maflawu with your friends until you were absolutely exhausted, running around in the sun until your clothes were dirty from top to bottom, your knees were dusty, your hair was probably doing something completely unacceptable, and you still thought it was the best day ever. And the funniest thing is, our parents probably thought we were just making noise. But now, years later, we realise that we were making memories.

Maybe this is what happens as you grow older. You begin to understand that the things you thought were ordinary were actually extraordinary. You begin to realise that your grandmother holding your hand, your grandfather telling you to turn the television down, your siblings shouting at one another, your uncles laughing around a fire, your father arriving home in his car, your friends calling you outside to play, these weren't just random moments. They were pieces of the life that built you. As I grow older, I find myself cherishing those moments more and more. I miss them because they were imperfect, but somehow they were full. They were full of people. Full of noise. Full of laughter. Full of rules, mischief, music, family, community and those little everyday things that we never realised we would one day long for. Sometimes I wish those moments had lasted longer.

I wish I had known, while I was living them, that one day I would sit thousands of kilometres away, hear an old Zimbabwean song and suddenly feel the ache of home sitting right in the middle of my chest. I wish little me had known to pay more attention. To listen more carefully to my grandmother's voice. To watch my grandfather a little longer. To laugh a little harder with my siblings. To sit around the fire and absorb every story. To take more of those imperfect photographs.

But perhaps that is the beauty of memory. We don't get to keep the moment, but we get to carry it. And sometimes, all it takes is one song, one familiar voice, one old cartoon, one photograph tucked inside a family album, and suddenly, you're back there. Back in that dining-sitting room. Back in your grandfather's house. Back with your siblings. Back with your cousins. Back outside playing until your clothes are dirty from top to bottom. Back waiting for Dad's car to come around the corner. Back listening to your uncles laugh by the fire. Back watching television with the volume so low that you could barely hear it because Sabbath meant business. Back to a time when one phone was enough, one television was enough, one family gathering was enough, and happiness didn't need to be photographed to prove that it happened. What a time in our lives. Maybe the world hasn't necessarily become worse. Maybe we have simply become too busy to notice the small things that once made life feel so full. And perhaps that is why nostalgia hits differently as we grow older. It reminds us that happiness was never always found in having more. Sometimes it was found in having less, but having people around you. So tonight, I think I will let myself sit in that nostalgia a little longer. Let the music play. Let the memories come. Let little me run around in the mud. Let my grandmother hold my hand. Let my sisters do their hair. Let my brothers turn up the music. Let my uncles laugh around the fire. Let Grandpa wonder why the television is making a strange noise in the background. For a few minutes, let the world be still. Because sometimes, you don't realise you are living through the good old days until they have already become the memories you would give anything to visit again. And oh, how I miss those days. My flower, if you only knew.