to be present at the beginning
When friends share stories, I am usually happy to listen and enjoy the tale, to see how the experience is reflected in the storyteller and to be entertained by the way they've described it. I am happy that we share the moment and sometimes let it be something that we have in common, that binds us closer. When older friends of mine tell me stories of Back In The Day, I'm also happy to know the history and see how it ripples out into the present. I'm glad to let them indulge in a bit of nostalgia, but, usually I'm not wistful for having missed out on the past. I'm pretty happy with my present, but I appreciate how it became what it is.
However, when she tells stories or just makes off-hand references to growing up with a family of interesting characters, or of an itinerant life that included stints in DC, North Africa and Boston, or of being an LGBT ally when it was all so much more fraught, there's a small part of me that wants to know what it would've been like to have been born 10 years earlier and to let our paths cross back then. It's not that I think I had missed out on some faded glories. I think she's done wonderfully for herself here, and I've always admired the way that, despite all of the fascinating and interesting chapters that she's lived through, she still keeps her eyes focused to today and tomorrow rather than yesterday and before.
No, I want to go back to see her becoming, to witness the formation of her vast compassion, her fierce strength, and that distinctive narrative voice. I want to talk of poetry and race and politics at a time when, for her, it was all being learned and accumulated. I wonder and imagine how we may have been as contemporaries, what alternate friendships we would have had, and what sort of details she's kept in mind for another time. She tells great stories, and like any good storyteller, she always leaves you wanting a little more.
However, when she tells stories or just makes off-hand references to growing up with a family of interesting characters, or of an itinerant life that included stints in DC, North Africa and Boston, or of being an LGBT ally when it was all so much more fraught, there's a small part of me that wants to know what it would've been like to have been born 10 years earlier and to let our paths cross back then. It's not that I think I had missed out on some faded glories. I think she's done wonderfully for herself here, and I've always admired the way that, despite all of the fascinating and interesting chapters that she's lived through, she still keeps her eyes focused to today and tomorrow rather than yesterday and before.
No, I want to go back to see her becoming, to witness the formation of her vast compassion, her fierce strength, and that distinctive narrative voice. I want to talk of poetry and race and politics at a time when, for her, it was all being learned and accumulated. I wonder and imagine how we may have been as contemporaries, what alternate friendships we would have had, and what sort of details she's kept in mind for another time. She tells great stories, and like any good storyteller, she always leaves you wanting a little more.