Over the course of ten minutes yesterday, 130 photographs were taken of the Penn campus by a classroom of students and their teacher. That's 130 brand new photos—pictures that will never be taken again—not precisely, not ever. The clouds won't whip that wide again, that pedestrian won't ignore that sign so unknowingly again, that man standing in the corner watching himself be watched by a camera has already disappeared.
And that's the point, when we're writing memoir—or at least that's part of the point. No picture like this one. No day like yesterday. No one like us.
How to write it all down, then, and how to make it matter?
4 comments:
Sounds like a productive session with the class.
Gorgeous.
And you make me miss Penn. Such beauty and alcoves of peace in the midst of a bustling city.
I like thinking about memoir as a kind of written photograph, capturing a moment (or moments) in a life in a way the brings them alive :)
As usual, you give me ideas...
How lovely.
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