Tuesday, July 29, 2008

“Who are we ... but the stories we tell about ourselves, particularly if we accept them?”

I recently read Ordinary Heroes and was taken by the notion that we are a product of the stories we tell about ourselves as much as of the experiences which generate the stories. I got to thinking about experiences I’ve had. I remember the stories I tell about them better than I remember the experience itself.

For example, I was once on board a DC-10 that was struck by lightening. The lightning bolt blew up one of three engines. We made an emergency landing. No one was hurt. I have told the story so often I can remember the story verbatim. I always use the same words, the same rhythm and cadence when I tell it. I pause for effect in the same places. But I vividly remember very little of the event itself.

Another example, my wife and I once swam with a Mahi Mahi, two False Killer Whales, and a Dolphin off the coast of Hawaii. The Mahi sought protection between my wife and me. The whales gradually became aggressive. We pushed the Mahi away and the whales ate it. Again, I remember the story of the event better than aspects of the event itself.

A final example, I remember telling the story of someone being shot dead in front of me at a city bus stop in Detroit on my first day of work at Arthur Andersen in 1974.

So ... if we are the stories we tell about ourselves ... it seems important to tell the stories of our lives. They fix the events of our lives in our living memories. I think this may be why I publish a website full of travel photos. The act of editing the photos and writing the stories of our travels fix these events in my own memory. I am not so naive as to think I have much of a readership, but if my readership is only me ... maybe that’s enough.

Last weekend, I returned to the city of my birth for a high school reunion, and visited the houses I lived in until the age of five, and from age five to 17 when I left home. They are on quiet streets. They remain in good repair. But they seem so much smaller to me. The streets themselves seem shorter and narrower. Only the trees, which are now nearly 80 years old seem bigger.

These photos are clickable.

1950 - 1955

1955 - 1968

I just noticed the snow shovel on the porch in the first photo. It reminded me of a freak May snowstorm when I was four. I had a kid-sized shovel and helped my dad shovel snow that was a deep as I was tall. And I was reminded of climbing a high ladder to clean birds nests out of the gutters above the drive in the second photo. But, sadly, I haven’t told these stories often enough to remember very well.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Quotable
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