Memory feeds imagination.
US novelist (1952 - )
1977. Or so the picture says. I remember the garden and how it went forever. When I wanted to run away, I packed a bag with the essentials (doll, bear), and I ran off to the end of the hedge. Not on the driveway side: the other side, just so I could stay inside the garden but look back at the house. Too far away. I think that's far enough: I'll go back now.
I'm the one on the left, at about that age. Lovely sardonic sister on the right. (Big sis, how did you know everything?)
This week after the last class of my editing course, a bunch of us were splitting a bottle of red wine down at the bar around a chunky dark wood table. One of the classmates said; "Tell us about something you saw on your travels. Something that really stays with you. That was unexpected and surprising".
The result was an amazing storytelling session, with wonderful flights of description and fascination. Memories shared. All the senses. The silly things we do. Moments of mistaken irony, surprising gorgeousness, startling and unexplained. Painted word pictures. Such imagination, memory.
Aren't you glad we've got it?
6 comments:
Wow. I would have laid money on you being the older girl!. You and your sister must look so alike
Great photo and great story telling idea. Happy Thanksgiving to our far-away Canadian!
Brings to mind a paraphrase of bell hooks and Milan Kundera:
Ours is a struggle of memory against forgetting.
I'm glad I have what I have.
The unexpected almost always ends up being better .... and I love that photo of you and your sister.
what lovely post :-) I love story telling sessions like that - people always have such interesting lives to share.
Bev, u and yr sis are alike, I thought the older one was u for sure!!
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