/ˈneg ɘ ɾiv, -tiv/ (adj.) From 13c. Old French ‘negatif’ and late Latin ‘negativus’ meaning “that which denies.” (n.) Usage in photography, in which light and shadow are opposites, was first recorded in 1853. The OED defines it as “characterized by the absence rather than the presence of distinguishing features.”
In poetic agreement, a scene. It is the lack that reminds. We hold the present negative up against the light of memory and notice something is gone.
I
Three-day old snow just isn’t the same, like three-day old bread. Fresh powder turned stale, browned, crusted over.
Cars parked on the side of the road are a row of igloos from a full night’s worth of snow plows clearing. I watch a man dig his car out from under the icy mass attacking it with the full-body stab of a shovel, as if one last heave will obliterate the heap. I think of how angry he’ll be when he realizes he’s dented his own car after the ice melts.
The scrape of shovels converse and echo the length of the street. Thick hats, insulated gloves, and puffy coats with humans inside as they bend and toss, bend and toss in an unspoken rhythm. It dawns on me that not one homeowner on this street has a snowplow, not even for the sidewalk. And how strange, all of this labor but not one puff of breath that I can see. No vapor plumes, just mouths lidded with fabric.
II
What is the difference between memory and nostalgia? Between reliving a memory and living in the past? Between that which reminds and that which clouds or clarifies? Between wishing and missing? How much does a memory acknowledge or deny? And how much is inverted, the opposite of how we remember it?
A hit of nostalgia, the drug we’ve most consumed for eleven months. I miss the post-storm buzz and jangle of snow plows clearing driveways in my neighborhood growing up. My earlobes redden and numb. Eyes water from the cold, rims puddle. What’s missing is that final signal, the sting of nose and cheeks that says it’s time to go inside for hot chocolate. They are now snuggled beneath two masks, and for the warmth that is by no means a complaint.
It just isn’t the same. Three-day old snow turned stale, muffled, iced over.
