NOSTALGIA - by Serena Samaila

Nostalgia is a quiet thing. It doesn’t arrive with noise or warning. It simply slips in through a familiar melody and suddenly, the years fold in on themselves.Growing up, my father had a playlist that ruled the house. The speakers would come alive without announcement, and the entire day would belong to voices that felt older than we were. My sister and I would hear the music before we even saw him drifting down the hallway, settling into the walls like it had always lived there.Songs by Whitney Houston.Songs by Yvonne Chaka Chaka.Songs by Dolly Parton.Songs by Luther Vandross.The smooth voice of Lionel Richie.And sometimes, the unmistakable melodies of R. Kelly. Back then, those songs felt like my father’s music. Slow. Dramatic. Too full of emotion for two young girls who only wanted to run around the house and laugh at nothing in particular. My sister and I would roll our eyes sometimes, wishing he would play something else. Something louder. Something that belonged to our generation.But childhood is quietly observant. It records things you don’t realize it’s keeping.The hum of the house on a hot afternoon.The slow spin of the ceiling fan.My sister somewhere nearby.And those songs, stretching through the rooms like sunlight.Then one day recently, a Whitney Houston song started playing again. And suddenly, it was 2011.One hot afternoon. The kind where the heat presses gently against the windows and everything feels slow. The house half–quiet, half–alive. My sister and I on the floor, pretending to be annoyed while our father played the same songs he always loved.For a moment, the years disappeared.And I understood something I hadn’t before. The tenderness in Luther Vandross’ voice.The warmth in Lionel Richie’s melodies.The joy in Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s music.The storytelling of Dolly Parton.And the breathtaking power of Whitney Houston.Somehow, the songs I once dreaded followed me into adulthood.Now I play them willingly. Sometimes on quiet afternoons. Sometimes when I need comfort I can’t quite explain.And the strange, beautiful thing is this: somewhere along the way, Whitney Houston became my favourite artist.Not because I discovered her on my own.But because my father filled our home with her voice long before I understood what it meant.Nostalgia is strange like that.It takes the music you once tried to escape…and gently turns it into the music that brings you home. 🎶

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