Ghosts of the Past: Longing for a Time That Never Really Was

A reflective essay explores the pull of nostalgia through a return to the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, where time feels both vivid and unreachable. The writer recounts saying goodbye after a four-week stay, discussing biographies of the late Queen brought home and weighing accounts by Hugo Vickers and Robert Hardman. The piece then shifts to “hiraeth” and “saudade,” describing a longing not only for a place but for a time that may never have truly existed. Instead of yearning to live in the past’s hardships, the author says they carry memories of earlier eras encountered through family stories and people born in the 1870s and 1880s.