restacks

Exploring the Present with the Past

This is a fascinating and provocative subject for me because very early on I developed or inherited a memory that can conveniently or inconveniently forget anything. So, now that eighty-eight years have slipped by, out of necessity, I am drawn to focus more on the present and the future. However, I'm aware of the wisdom of warnings to pay attention to the past to inform my present and future.

Contributions from Others

  1. Stephen Michael Sladek: Thanks Jo Mosser for highlighting The Gift of Tears (recently given to me, a complete novice, via poetry). Just before this post of Padraig's, I went on my first trip to Ireland (my maternal ancestors- McFadden's- came from Roscommon County in 1860). The streets of Dublin blew me away, and here is what poured out:

    Forgive, But Never Forge…

  2. Monica: The person and interview that I have been coming back to was actually from an interview that Krista Tippet had last year with a visionary human, Katsi Cook, a Miwok midwife and indigenous elder. Her phrase, "Women are the First Environment" gripped my heart, so much so, that I have not been able to let go of her words this past year.

  3. Patrick Watters: Viewing the present through the past… DNA testing and personal pilgrimage and vision quest led me to my ancestral past. Though I knew much already as a young man, it has been that quest as an old one that revealed much.

  4. Susan Fernbach: For about a decade, I have been in relationship with my 2 great-aunts, Anni and Ruth, who were murdered at Auschwitz in their 50s. They were single women with careers (children’s art teacher and post-partum nurse), and they were also baptized Jews. They lived in Berlin.

  5. PAT: Ohhhhh the claws! Shredding confidence, shredding delusion, shredding illusion and hopefully shredding willful ignorance.

  6. Lisa Marie Simmons: Isn't it delightful that every single week there is someone in the comments who says, what kismet, I was just thinking about this? Today that person is me.

  7. Graham Cunningham: "The past is my only possession... my treasured book...in here, see?"

Each of these contributions explores the relationship between our past and present, offering personal insights and reflections that highlight the importance of memory and experience in shaping our identity.