Colette Chen
That Sweet Monotony
“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops.
"What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?“
—George Eliot
Nostalgia has become a familiar companion of mine. Of course, it comes with the confusion and grief of growing up. The suffocating sense of not being able to make sense of where I am, how I got here, and where I should go only reinforces this desire to escape.
To a fantasy that has passed.
A time of being unafraid.
Before a person becomes aware of the birds that are not “God’s.”
Escapism can often give rise to discontent and a sense of being without. But I think if we wield nostalgia wisely, we can empower the present and start to perceive the world a bit more like our child selves. Things like playing hide-and-seek and walking home from school could be considered mundane, but to a child, great and vast worlds lie in these moments. We can “revert” to seeing the magic in the small things and hold close that which makes us feel known and loved.
This collection explores the paradoxical phenomenon that is “sweet monotony.”
The cherishing of all things small.
And yet so wondrous.
Of all things sweet.
And yet so monotonous.
