What's the Story You Remember?
Reflection and the Transience of Meaning
Friends, my plan today was to celebrate a great big fabulous announcement of a new book project with you all. Alas, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to do that!
Instead, a quick note about yesterday’s wonderful, well attended and humbling event at Littleton Opera House. Many, many thanks go out to NH Humanities for sponsoring me in the Mount Washington program, and thanks to all the wonderful attendees who braved some pretty miserable rainy weather to gather together over pizza and seltzer to talk about our favorite piece of real estate.
The presentation was part of the NH Humanities on the Road series with a theme of exploring how stories shape us personally. The question which was asked was: What’s the Story you Remember? I took this to mean - in the case of Mount Washington - that we all have memories of that geography, each of our memories are different and personal, and we alone ascribe individual meaning to those memories.
In other words, two people can experience the same reality (say, the summit of Mount Washington on the same day at the same time) and yet come away with wildly different, and in fact, perhaps competing memories. And how often that plays out, doesn’t it? And how often, maybe even exclusively, is memory connected to emotion.
So I’m curious. What Story do you Remember? From your youth? Recently? That someone else related to you? How does it make you feel?
What’s the Story You Remember?
Thank you all for coming along with me this week. It’s been fun! And I promise, tomorrow is the day. I’ll announce the big new book project right here first, tomorrow morning. I’m so eager to tell you and hear what you all think. Stay tuned. It’s big!
Meantime, a big caffeinated thank you to the crazy many of you who have donated toward Buying Me a Cup of Coffee and keep me awake and jittery! Goodness, that is so kind of you. Subscriptions are free here so it’s super nice you you all to do that!
Lastly, thanks for all your shares as well. That’s how we get new subscribers here and our little community keeps growing. It’s so nice to have you, share away!
Till tomorrow, eyes forward, back straight, let’s get this!
Your prompt reminded me of a hike I did reciently, not to Mt. Washington but to Mt. Whiteface and Mt. Passaconaway. For me it was the second hike of a grueling weekend with a 20 mile trip into Zealand the day before. This 12 mile hike was an absolute sufferfest. My feet were killing me by the time I got to the summit (boots were too tight and I lost several toenails from that hike) and I was just miserable. But a buddy had invited me and I told him I would be there, so there I was.
He on the other hand was fresh, had a light pack (mine was nearly full as I'm training for some big backpacking adventures this summer) and loved the hike. I slowed him down quite a bit I'm sure as there was no spring in my step. So it is a great example of two people at the same place at the same time with a vastly different experience.