In my opinion, it is not something that should be done frequently. While at college, I really think it is important to stay in the environment. Living with friends and living on your own over time creates remarkable differences in your personality. But sometimes, it is nice to go home.
I am at my dad's house for the weekend. Before I drove here on Friday night, I had not seen my family in a bit longer than a month and a half. That does not sound like much, but when you have a six-year old sister who started first grade and a seventeen-year old brother who started his senior year of high school since you last saw them, a month and a half can actually mark quite a few changes.
Returning to Lansdale, one of my several homes, always feels a bit stagnant. Life here hasn't really changed since I started coming to visit every other weekend in middle school. My initial reaction is always to question what the true value of "family time" really is.
But then, I teach my sister to merengue, and she surprises me by inventing a new swing dancing move. I sit and have tea with my step-mother, and we discuss as equals what I've been doing with my life and how she feels in her current stage of life. I watch X-men Origins: Wolverine with my dad after the two of us have built a stage for Rachel out of skids, particle board, and laminate flooring. And I stand in the rain with my brother, sharing an umbrella and a night, and catching up on topics that can only be discussed at two in the morning when my parents have already gone to sleep.
And you know what? It is at these times, when everyone else is in bed, even the dogs, that I remember why it is good to come home.
16.9.09
The semester has officially started...
Today, as I was walking to a tutoring session, I noticed a crow diving repeatedly at our housekeeping building on campus. I was intrigued by the loud caws. Turns out he was threatening our red-tailed hawk in-residence, who was perched in the upper branches of a pine tree next to the building. This was the first time I had seen my lovely red-tailed friend this semester. He sat quietly ruffling his feathers, unperturbed. I laughed at the crow's futile cries: "Hey you! Get the hell out of my tree!"
It was good to see an old friend.
It was good to see an old friend.
6.9.09
The Things We Carry
One of my friends', Miranda's, favorite greetings after she hasn't seen a friend in a long time is to say: "Tell me a story." She recognizes by now, after two years of our friendship, that I am infamous for not having a clear, coherent story to tell her when she asks. Whenever I try to tell her a story, I look back on my life's history, both recent and past, and try to think of events in my life that would make a good story. I am always at a loss as to where to begin.
Today I finished reading Tim O'Brien's book, "The Things They Carried." Beyond being a book about the Vietnam war, this book is about memory and storytelling. O'Brien questions whether the "happening-truth" of a story - the actual facts of occurance - are more relevant or important than the "story-truth." He presents the idea that it is acceptable, and sometimes even desireable, to change the details of a story to better bring to light to the reader the feelings that should be experienced. The goal of a story should be to make the flame of truth burn brighter for the reader/listener; to share a dream/memory that the story-teller is having. If this is best accomplished by changing a few details, than that is what should be done.
This approach to storytelling makes me consider the attitude our society takes toward reporting events and knowledge. We seem to have taken an oath in empiricism. Nothing is true, and therefore, nothing is meaningful, unless it can be measured and consequently proven. What could the benefit be to adopting O'Brien's view of storytelling. Sure, we may not want news-anchors fabricating statistics and factual events in order to make us feel what it was like at the scene of a warzone, but can we in today's society create legends of men and women who live masterful, role-model lives without injecting their stories with cynicism and mudslinging?
"What stories can do, I guess, is make things present" (180). In a phenomenological sense (and I in no way claim to know nearly enough about phenomenology) stories call into presence aspects of experiences and relations that are absent for the listener/reader. The listener was not at the setting for the story, was not in the middle of the action, and cannot know what it was like to feel the events unfolding around him/her. Adapting the telling of the story can make him/her understand what it was like to be there.
I believe that story-telling is intricately linked to the human mind's ability to encorporate and learn from the past. O'Brien describes how in his stories he can make the dead sit up and talk again. By dreaming, he can keep his friends alive forever. Through story-telling, we can re-live, re-learn, and re=love our past. What greater pedagogical tool can we have to transmit life-learnings than to use our gift of storytelling - complete with our understanding of symbols, story structure, and morals - to craft experiences for those we care about?
I make no claim to be even an adequate story teller. There are some people who are able to capture an entire room's attention through their description of the most mundane occurance, and there are those whose awkward telling of even the most startling experiences leaves the uncomfortableaudience anxious to move on in the conversation. Story-telling, I believe, is a skill that must be learned, reflected on, and practiced. I might not always have a story for Miranda, but the more I listen to the stories that she and our mutual friends tell, the deeper appreciation I gather for the stories that my life can present. I just hope that I can honor them through my telling.
Today I finished reading Tim O'Brien's book, "The Things They Carried." Beyond being a book about the Vietnam war, this book is about memory and storytelling. O'Brien questions whether the "happening-truth" of a story - the actual facts of occurance - are more relevant or important than the "story-truth." He presents the idea that it is acceptable, and sometimes even desireable, to change the details of a story to better bring to light to the reader the feelings that should be experienced. The goal of a story should be to make the flame of truth burn brighter for the reader/listener; to share a dream/memory that the story-teller is having. If this is best accomplished by changing a few details, than that is what should be done.
This approach to storytelling makes me consider the attitude our society takes toward reporting events and knowledge. We seem to have taken an oath in empiricism. Nothing is true, and therefore, nothing is meaningful, unless it can be measured and consequently proven. What could the benefit be to adopting O'Brien's view of storytelling. Sure, we may not want news-anchors fabricating statistics and factual events in order to make us feel what it was like at the scene of a warzone, but can we in today's society create legends of men and women who live masterful, role-model lives without injecting their stories with cynicism and mudslinging?
"What stories can do, I guess, is make things present" (180). In a phenomenological sense (and I in no way claim to know nearly enough about phenomenology) stories call into presence aspects of experiences and relations that are absent for the listener/reader. The listener was not at the setting for the story, was not in the middle of the action, and cannot know what it was like to feel the events unfolding around him/her. Adapting the telling of the story can make him/her understand what it was like to be there.
I believe that story-telling is intricately linked to the human mind's ability to encorporate and learn from the past. O'Brien describes how in his stories he can make the dead sit up and talk again. By dreaming, he can keep his friends alive forever. Through story-telling, we can re-live, re-learn, and re=love our past. What greater pedagogical tool can we have to transmit life-learnings than to use our gift of storytelling - complete with our understanding of symbols, story structure, and morals - to craft experiences for those we care about?
I make no claim to be even an adequate story teller. There are some people who are able to capture an entire room's attention through their description of the most mundane occurance, and there are those whose awkward telling of even the most startling experiences leaves the uncomfortableaudience anxious to move on in the conversation. Story-telling, I believe, is a skill that must be learned, reflected on, and practiced. I might not always have a story for Miranda, but the more I listen to the stories that she and our mutual friends tell, the deeper appreciation I gather for the stories that my life can present. I just hope that I can honor them through my telling.
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