Joanna McMeikan - Thoughts


8/2/04 - The Mythology of the Past... Just a few quick thoughts for now, since I'm busily looking for a new place to live in Los Angeles... Apartment hunting is no fun! It's just like looking for a new job or a new lover -- you have to figure out which flaws you're willing to accept and which you are not, and find the best deal you can under those conditions... ;) I found and posted a few cool old pictures though, so hopefully they will make up for the brevity. I've been thinking lately about memories, and how they are strange composites of whatever actually happened, combined with the stories we build up around what actually happened over the years, plus what other people have told us about what happened... in addition to which, our original memory of a particular event was only ever our take, our slant, on the event in the first place. All of us too often perceive memories as cold, hard, solid truths. In my opinion, they are no such thing. They are patchwork quilts, collages, abstract paintings in which we can see one shape or another depending on our mood at the time. They are organic mythologies, and the way we choose to tell the story, embroider the material around the bones of the facts, tells far more about the storyteller's character than it does about what actually happened. My grandmother died recently, and this is a picture of me as a baby that I found in her collection of family photographs. I spent hours looking at it, because I find it endlessly strange that this is me, and yet I have absolutely no memory of being that little person whatsoever. Same bones, same flesh, same eyes, same hands -- similar personality even -- but no memory. Nothing to really attach me to that little girl other than my logical understanding that it is, in fact, me; and the stories my mother has told me about how I used to cry a lot and how I talked much earlier than most babies and how my brothers used to leave sleeping bags padded with pillows by my bed because I would scream if I was left alone. This one is me a few years older, wearing red Dorothy shoes, wondering if the old people seated in endless rows along the seafront at Brighton might know how to get somewhere over the rainbow... At least, that's what I like to think this is. I don't really remember this moment either. I really wish I did. I look very determined, as if I have something endlessly important to do. My point, if I have one, is just that we all let memory define us too much, we let the past define us too much... when it's largely a fiction. We are who we are, in this moment, in this present. How we have been shaped up to this moment is inescapable, but how we mold ourselves from this point on is a clear choice - and is entirely within our own individual control. ****************************************** Random List: Best recent rental: "The Young Ones"; "The Best of Bert and Ernie" with the volume turned down and alternative dialogue provided by the audience. I am listening to: Maroon 5, Patrick Park, Alanis Morissette. Favorite thing today: The way hamsters sit on their haunches and wash their faces with their little pink hamster hands. Least favorite thing today: Aches and pains; female hormones; millipedes that come indoors; apartment buildings that are set up like cheap motels. **************************************** MORE POINTLESS RAMBLINGS TO COME SOON! **************************************** READ EARLIER RAMBLINGS BY CLICKING BELOW: 4/29/2004 - Birthday Ramblings 6/20/2004 - Princesses in the Post Office **************************************** E MAIL ME IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS! joanna@joannamcmeikan.com Write to Joanna with your thoughts, questions, opinions, suggestions.**

8/2/04 - The Mythology of the Past...

Just a few quick thoughts for now, since I'm busily looking for a new place to live in Los Angeles... Apartment hunting is no fun! It's just like looking for a new job or a new lover -- you have to figure out which flaws you're willing to accept and which you are not, and find the best deal you can under those conditions... ;)

I found and posted a few cool old pictures though, so hopefully they will make up for the brevity.

I've been thinking lately about memories, and how they are strange composites of whatever actually happened, combined with the stories we build up around what actually happened over the years, plus what other people have told us about what happened... in addition to which, our original memory of a particular event was only ever our take, our slant, on the event in the first place.

All of us too often perceive memories as cold, hard, solid truths. In my opinion, they are no such thing. They are patchwork quilts, collages, abstract paintings in which we can see one shape or another depending on our mood at the time. They are organic mythologies, and the way we choose to tell the story, embroider the material around the bones of the facts, tells far more about the storyteller's character than it does about what actually happened.

My grandmother died recently, and this is a picture of me as a baby that I found in her collection of family photographs. I spent hours looking at it, because I find it endlessly strange that this is me, and yet I have absolutely no memory of being that little person whatsoever. Same bones, same flesh, same eyes, same hands -- similar personality even -- but no memory. Nothing to really attach me to that little girl other than my logical understanding that it is, in fact, me; and the stories my mother has told me about how I used to cry a lot and how I talked much earlier than most babies and how my brothers used to leave sleeping bags padded with pillows by my bed because I would scream if I was left alone.

This one is me a few years older, wearing red Dorothy shoes, wondering if the old people seated in endless rows along the seafront at Brighton might know how to get somewhere over the rainbow... At least, that's what I like to think this is. I don't really remember this moment either. I really wish I did. I look very determined, as if I have something endlessly important to do.

My point, if I have one, is just that we all let memory define us too much, we let the past define us too much... when it's largely a fiction. We are who we are, in this moment, in this present. How we have been shaped up to this moment is inescapable, but how we mold ourselves from this point on is a clear choice - and is entirely within our own individual control.

********************************************

Random List:

Best recent rental: "The Young Ones"; "The Best of Bert and Ernie" with the
volume turned down and alternative dialogue provided by the audience.

I am listening to: Maroon 5, Patrick Park, Alanis Morissette.

Favorite thing today: The way hamsters sit on their haunches and wash
their faces with their little pink hamster hands.

Least favorite thing today: Aches and pains; female hormones; millipedes that
come indoors; apartment buildings that are set up like cheap motels.

********************************************

MORE POINTLESS RAMBLINGS TO COME SOON!

********************************************

READ EARLIER RAMBLINGS BY CLICKING BELOW:

4/29/2004 - Birthday Ramblings

6/20/2004 - Princesses in the Post Office

********************************************

E MAIL ME IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS!

joanna@joannamcmeikan.com
Write to Joanna with your thoughts, questions, opinions, suggestions.