Cheryl DeGroot, Corky Sunkel, Linda Greaves and Janet Dore'
Janet Dore', Terry Scatena and Ralph Erickson
Terry Scatena, Dewene Buffett, Sandy Harkins with Wes Tonkins and his wife in the backgroundToday I am happy that I keep journals and that I have been writing in them for forty years. Yesterday I was reading in journals from 2000 to 2003 trying to find a mention of a medical test that I knew I'd had done in that timeframe. I did finally find some evidence that I needed for my current doctor, but in looking I also found entries about what my life was like 9 years ago. That's not very far back when you think about how old I am now--I can remember as far back as 60 years, so nine in virtually nothing, a blink in time.
I was reading about myself, about my husband, about my kids, about my brothers and my mother and my Dad, about my oldest friend. Funny thing is, if someone asked me today what I was thinking and feeling in the year 2000 I'd remember it differently than how it really was. I would have forgotten that my kids were emailing me lots more often then, I'd have no memory of a rift between me and my friend that mimics a problem we repeated recently. I would not have remembered what my brother had said about our Mom and his need for her gratitude, which is similar to some feelings I am having now. I wouldn't remember that my Mother's memory was shifty and that my present observation of her way of thinking is really not new at all. I did not forget the emails that my brother and I exchanged in the two years before he died. I had saved them and printed them all, including the ones in which we misread each other, got angry and then made up, aplogizing and professing our love for each other. I haven't forgotten that because it was so precious to me. It was the first time we'd ever tried to understand each other.
I spent hours reading the entries. It was as though someone else had written them and of course, if I admit that I am constantly changing, then it's understandable that I am less familiar with that Christine than with the one I'm living in right now. I have been reading a book called Crones Don't Whine by Jean Shinoda Bolen. She writes: "The thought that we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path, has intrigued me since it first entered my mind". That thought intrigues me, too. That our spirits inhabit a body on a human path, something like Stephanie Meyers character in her book The Host, is a mind warping idea. This spiritual creature inside of this human body, changes so much that nine years later I barely recognize it. It is as though the body has stayed relatively the same, but the spirit has shifted. It has not necessarily shifted in a good or bad way, it has not necessarily learned to be better or turned toward a more negative way, it has changed. And in some ways it has not changed at all. The rift with the old friend has been repeated. The thoughts of my brother have become mine. My relationship with my husband has been affected by the events that have occurred and my reaction to them.
Isn't it that way with our perceptions of our school mates? We can see that their bodies have changed and we think we can remember what they were like and what our awareness of them was 47 years ago. But do we really remember with any accuracy? Don't we have to consider what time has done to our memories? Don't we have to imagine what the passage of those years and all of their experiences has done to the spirits inside of them? If we think about what time has done to ourselves, don't we have to consider the same for them?
In another book I am reading, (Astrid and Veronika, by Linda Olsson), Astrid, a Swedish woman of 80, waits for her despised husband of 60 years to die--when he finally does she realizes that he was not her misfortune, that her demons had begun long before he came into her life. Could it be that some of the things that bedeviled us in high school and that we may have attached to certain people, were anxieties that came from elsewhere, before we even met these people?
I have been told by some of my classmates that reunions are terrifying for them, that their high school years are a time they would like to forget. I was lucky to have had a good time in school, with good friends and, mostly, positive experiences. But I know there are others who were not as fortunate. I also know that some of my classmates have conquered their fears and come to the lunches we have been having. In some cases they have found that they have held misconceptions about old acquaintances and have not considered the spirits inside the bodies that they recognize. And they begin to see that what they know as their own changing has also been experienced by their classmate. Of course this is the case. How could anyone not change? But sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we cast people we once knew in a frozen state inside our memory. Like a fossil they are forever preserved in memory even though in reality they are different people.
Like the evolution of the Christine Who Writes in her Journals, consider your own and everyone else's evolutions. Have you changed? Of course. Have they changed? Of course. If you have not come to a lunch yet, please think about it. We want to see the changes to the spirit inside you.
I was reading about myself, about my husband, about my kids, about my brothers and my mother and my Dad, about my oldest friend. Funny thing is, if someone asked me today what I was thinking and feeling in the year 2000 I'd remember it differently than how it really was. I would have forgotten that my kids were emailing me lots more often then, I'd have no memory of a rift between me and my friend that mimics a problem we repeated recently. I would not have remembered what my brother had said about our Mom and his need for her gratitude, which is similar to some feelings I am having now. I wouldn't remember that my Mother's memory was shifty and that my present observation of her way of thinking is really not new at all. I did not forget the emails that my brother and I exchanged in the two years before he died. I had saved them and printed them all, including the ones in which we misread each other, got angry and then made up, aplogizing and professing our love for each other. I haven't forgotten that because it was so precious to me. It was the first time we'd ever tried to understand each other.
I spent hours reading the entries. It was as though someone else had written them and of course, if I admit that I am constantly changing, then it's understandable that I am less familiar with that Christine than with the one I'm living in right now. I have been reading a book called Crones Don't Whine by Jean Shinoda Bolen. She writes: "The thought that we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path, has intrigued me since it first entered my mind". That thought intrigues me, too. That our spirits inhabit a body on a human path, something like Stephanie Meyers character in her book The Host, is a mind warping idea. This spiritual creature inside of this human body, changes so much that nine years later I barely recognize it. It is as though the body has stayed relatively the same, but the spirit has shifted. It has not necessarily shifted in a good or bad way, it has not necessarily learned to be better or turned toward a more negative way, it has changed. And in some ways it has not changed at all. The rift with the old friend has been repeated. The thoughts of my brother have become mine. My relationship with my husband has been affected by the events that have occurred and my reaction to them.
Isn't it that way with our perceptions of our school mates? We can see that their bodies have changed and we think we can remember what they were like and what our awareness of them was 47 years ago. But do we really remember with any accuracy? Don't we have to consider what time has done to our memories? Don't we have to imagine what the passage of those years and all of their experiences has done to the spirits inside of them? If we think about what time has done to ourselves, don't we have to consider the same for them?
In another book I am reading, (Astrid and Veronika, by Linda Olsson), Astrid, a Swedish woman of 80, waits for her despised husband of 60 years to die--when he finally does she realizes that he was not her misfortune, that her demons had begun long before he came into her life. Could it be that some of the things that bedeviled us in high school and that we may have attached to certain people, were anxieties that came from elsewhere, before we even met these people?
I have been told by some of my classmates that reunions are terrifying for them, that their high school years are a time they would like to forget. I was lucky to have had a good time in school, with good friends and, mostly, positive experiences. But I know there are others who were not as fortunate. I also know that some of my classmates have conquered their fears and come to the lunches we have been having. In some cases they have found that they have held misconceptions about old acquaintances and have not considered the spirits inside the bodies that they recognize. And they begin to see that what they know as their own changing has also been experienced by their classmate. Of course this is the case. How could anyone not change? But sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we cast people we once knew in a frozen state inside our memory. Like a fossil they are forever preserved in memory even though in reality they are different people.
Like the evolution of the Christine Who Writes in her Journals, consider your own and everyone else's evolutions. Have you changed? Of course. Have they changed? Of course. If you have not come to a lunch yet, please think about it. We want to see the changes to the spirit inside you.
3 comments:
You have hit the proverbial nail on the head with this writing. One thing learned from these luncheons is not only have those attending changed, many of them had much in common and didn't know it. Perception keeping them apart in their youth. As the saying goes, don't judge the book by its cover. A lesson learned much later in life. As to remembering what happened yesterday. Do you remember past events different then your children and siblings? I should have kept a journal too.
OOPS!! it posted twice..
I fixed it! Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I remember past events very differently from my siblings and probably from my children, too, but none of them would believe my version if their's differed, with a journal or not!
Post a Comment