Wow. I think I will be sitting with the sentiments shared in this essay for a long time. Thank you for giving space and giving shape to so many things that have swirled around inside of me in a sort of formless, nameless dance for a long time. When I'm feeling my most nostalgic and wistful, I study my old journals and wish I had been able to capture memories in a more visceral experience. The way someone's hand felt in mine. The way fireworks sounded on a summer evening before college, the feeling of humid night air on my skin. The way the sky looked outside a plane window when I was flying to the funeral of a friend I hadn't spoken to in a few years. I feel that it's often so hard to capture these moments, but wonder if I'm putting too much pressure on myself to complete the memory, to give them a narrative arc. This is a beautiful nudge to explore the fragments. I'm buying this book immediately, thank you again for sharing.
"Because what is a life other than a house with sticks? What is a life other than something that may or may not feel solid and present in the moment, but, as you look back, shakes and sways with the blank space of memory, with what is left behind and out and away, with the open windows of a room once lived in but never finished? Isn’t that a life? Isn’t that sometimes, at least, how it feels to live?" These lines really resonated with me today. Thank you.
Wow. I think I will be sitting with the sentiments shared in this essay for a long time. Thank you for giving space and giving shape to so many things that have swirled around inside of me in a sort of formless, nameless dance for a long time. When I'm feeling my most nostalgic and wistful, I study my old journals and wish I had been able to capture memories in a more visceral experience. The way someone's hand felt in mine. The way fireworks sounded on a summer evening before college, the feeling of humid night air on my skin. The way the sky looked outside a plane window when I was flying to the funeral of a friend I hadn't spoken to in a few years. I feel that it's often so hard to capture these moments, but wonder if I'm putting too much pressure on myself to complete the memory, to give them a narrative arc. This is a beautiful nudge to explore the fragments. I'm buying this book immediately, thank you again for sharing.
thanks so much for this, Hannah -- really appreciate your own insights.
"Because what is a life other than a house with sticks? What is a life other than something that may or may not feel solid and present in the moment, but, as you look back, shakes and sways with the blank space of memory, with what is left behind and out and away, with the open windows of a room once lived in but never finished? Isn’t that a life? Isn’t that sometimes, at least, how it feels to live?" These lines really resonated with me today. Thank you.
thank you!
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