What Is Wrong with Me?
Ever since I heard of the 1964 World's Fair in New York I have felt homesick for it (I was born in 1964 and have never been to that fair). Every time I watch a video or see pictures of it, I feel so incredibly homesick for it. Why? I love amusement parks, but fairs haven't always held that much fascination for me. But the 1964 World's Fair---yes, there's something about that one. I feel like I have been there. It always seems so familiar to me---like a long lost friend. Just minutes ago I started crying over it. I see those pavilions and attractions and they feel like long lost friends gone forever---and I get so sad. But I have never been there. The fair was about the future and living in peace. I have always been so fascinated about retro-future things like the 1960s outlook on the future. But the 1964 World's Fair---I have some kind of personal connection to that place that I don't understand. As my anxiety is growing because of personal matters/ job, etc. I get more engrossed into things like that fair. I feel like I want to escape into it---through some time machine. Or, escape into my own fantasy world that is a resort town. But my fantasy world never existed, but the fair did---and I am now depressed over it. My synesthesia for the 1964 World's Fair makes it a faded blue with a slight cast of grey to it. It evokes an emotion in me that I have extreme difficulty explaining---a sort of deep nostalgic sadness laced with happiness and hope and dreams. It has the same aura to it as Marina City does in Chicago.
Why am I posting this here in The Haven? Because my anxiety and my "feeling down and lost" for several days now has now entered my realm of feeling this deep sentimentality for the 1964 World's Fair. Images of it keeping playing in my mind, and I weep for it. I feel like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters with the compulsion to duplicate it in miniature like he did with Devil's Tower. But that fair, with its 646 acres and over 150 pavilions would be a near impossible feat for me to model. Perhaps I would duplicate one part of it---perhaps the New York pavilion with its three towers. Those towers, with their rusted elevators stuck high up on them, still stand in disrepair. I can hear the clanking of the broken elevator cables banging against the steel tower core---though I live hundreds of miles away from them. I weep a tear for each clang of those towers.
Maybe I am depressed, and I feel as rusty as those surviving towers---some of the very few things surviving from the fair. The lights of that fair no longer light up, and I feel like my light is gone too. I can see light at the end of the tunnel, but that tunnel is very long. And I am now crying for that place I have never been to---a place that was born with me in 1964. The fair died, but I survive with its towers---rusty from the years. But they stand tall as I do. They dream that one day they will entertain guests once more. And my dreams are held high with the gifts that autism has given to me. I just need to get through this rusty moment. And as I weep salty tears, those towers weep tears of rust.
Something is not right with me. This anxiety is building. This low-feeling is strange for me. I don't understand it. I feel like I could live the rest of my life sitting on this couch looking out the large picture window with its drapes pulled shut and listening to the pump of the fishless aquarium beside me push water through the filter---as I ache for my World's Fair of dreams and peace.
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"My journey has just begun."
CockneyRebel
Veteran

Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 118,420
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love
For you, it's the 1964 World's Fair. For me, it's the Mick Avory Era of The Kinks. It's easy to have a yearning for something from the past that you have a strong attachment for. Perhaps you can celebrate that part of you, like I celebrate my little quirk.
Sweet Pea hugs
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The Family Enigma
I feel emotional connections to buildings also. A favourite building of mine almost got demolished by a council a few years ago and I got so angry you wouldn't believe, I felt like I had to be its voice because it didn't have one. I have a building in Melbourne (I'm Aussie) which is quite a way away which I go and see every time i'm there, and I feel the same way about many buildings in my city. I don't think it's wrong at all to feel emotional attachment to things that others don't...just shows we're all unique. There's nothing wrong with you.
CockneyRebel---I think I will do as you said and celebrate that. Though I didn't think about it earlier, it is interesting how we both have an element from the 1960s that we long for. Perhaps I should build an HO scale model of the pavilion for my model train layout's amusement park. There it can live in the glory it once had---although in miniature. Thank you for the hugs, I need them.
Cad---Hi, I don't think we've ever talked to each other before---so I am glad to meet you. Thanks for sharing your emotions to buildings too. It's good to know I'm not alone in that. I love architecture---and the 1960s is so fascinating to me---for me they held dreams in a troubled world---dreams of the future and dreams of peace. That was what that fair was all about. A city near where I live is famous for tearing down old landmarks---so so sad. Just recently they tore down a 200 year old house that was once the home of an Ohio governor.
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"My journey has just begun."
Glider18 - nice to meet you too I know what you mean about the 1960s, and I love architecture too. For me it's the 1920s-1940s, interwar period/jazz age. That era for me symbolises the start of modernism but at the same time there is an emphasis on craftmanship. I love how many of the buildings back them imitated ships, trains, radios/other gagets, and many have Egyptian/Aztec styling or references to the jazz era (there's a house in a town a few hours north of me and it's got a fence with wrought iron music notes on it!). They're so mathematical/geometrical compared to buildings of today. I do like Georgian, post war, 70s and other architecture styles as well but art deco and the 20s-40s is my favourite. I live in a colonial town where there are lots of sandstone cottages
The death of the space age did it to me. I was told as a young kid growing up in the 70's that by the time I was middle aged they'd have colonies on the moon and on Mars.
None of that ever happened, and their winding down NASA, retiring the shuttles and the internatioal space station, Hubble eventually as well. This is not the future I expected to live in. I didn't sign up for economic and social collapse, which is what we got.
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None of that ever happened, and their winding down NASA, retiring the shuttles and the internatioal space station, Hubble eventually as well. This is not the future I expected to live in. I didn't sign up for economic and social collapse, which is what we got.
Yes, that was the school age I grew up with too. I even did a science fair project about a colony on the moon or Mars. I truly believed that by the time I was the age I am now that we would have these colonies and would have explored space far beyond where we have. I agree with you.
Hi Kyra71---I'm glad you relate to that feeling of belonging (homesick) to such places. It is an odd feeling that's hard to explain.
Cad---I like the 1920s for amusement parks and roller coasters. For me, that was the golden age of amusements. I feel extremely sentimental for 1920s roller coasters (so few left). I also like the jazz age since I am a musician. And art deco is a great style for me too---I especially like the Chrysler building in NYC. Your town sounds beautiful.
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"My journey has just begun."
Have you seen the tv series called Carnivale? It's one of my favourite shows about these Gypsies in the dust bowl of America in the 20s who drive around in a carnival and all this supernatural stuff happens to them. I love the Chrysler building, I haven't seen it for real though, and I'm also a musician

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