the most vivid memories I keep are those from times in tight groups, where some singular purpose prevailed and provided a backdrop for all conversation, speculation, and activity. it must be the reflective property of other people's faces that makes memories from groups last so much longer. but memories from times I was out on my own, doing my own thing--those fade so deep. that's why I have to write them down.
I wonder why it is we remember people so well. even if the names don't stick, the faces--and with me voices, I almost always remember a person's voice--they get filed in the very top file of our brain, ready at any moment to recognize those people again. people must be important.
really, it is the people who make doing anything worth doing. it is the society, the community...the reflections from all these various souls...
it doesn't really matter what you're doing. it can be undeniably amazing if you're doing it with the right people.
usually the right people seem to get thrown into the same microcosm by accident. or perhaps it's that anyone can be the right people, depending on how you look at it. like those three roommates and all the neighbors who added something mellow and hilarious to every moment you spent with them. or those coworkers during college who put on loud music and once in a while engaged in marvelous table-cloth fights at the end of those late banquets. more recently, it's been a dozen young men in suits, a few young women in skirts, all of us just trying to keep up this ideal, this power, this feeling, these miracles, that love.
notes to self: remember. just be honest. stop waiting for things to happen.
4 comments:
Amen. I went to Peru with five friends to do some humanitarian work and see Machu Picchu. It was great. While there, I met a young guy my age who was backpacking for a week across part of South America ... alone. I felt inexplicably sad. I didn't realize why until later.
I realized, I don't think I would want to have an amazing experience like that until I had someone to come with me and share it with. If you don't have someone to reminisce with about an event, it's almost as though it never happened.
I don't know if that's right or wrong, or whether it's always true, but it just feels that way. Experiences are more real when they're shared with another person.
yeah. and i think that's also why leaving that kind of thing behind can be so hard. the things we do and the people we do them with start to define who we are...
"damn, girl. you're a writer."
that's who I am...
thanks chelsi. :)
Post a Comment