I’m still reading Independence Day by Richard Ford and I’m still enjoying it immensely. I just love the protagonist’s (Frank) way of thinking—probably because he thinks a lot like I do. He’s a realtor and here are his thoughts about the way people grasp onto the importance of places:
“It is…a patent lesson of the realty profession, to cease sanctifying places—houses, beaches, hometowns, a street corner where you once kissed a girl, a parade ground where you marched in line, a courthouse where you secured a divorce on a cloudy day in July but where there is now no sign of you, no mention in the air’s breath that you were there or that you were ever, importantly you, or that you even were. We may feel they ought to, should confer something—sanction, again—because of events that transpired there once; light a warming fire to animate us when we’re well nigh inanimate and sunk. But they don’t.”
When people fail to remember, acknowledge, or even know what has happened in the past in a place that I’ve sanctified, then it bothers me. I’ve written here in the past about my ever-changing childhood neighborhood. Here’s a little of what I said in one post: “Neighborhoods change with time—just like nearly everything else. But the older I get the more I want people to at least acknowledge how things used to be. Not because things were better then, but because those things are part of who I am. If people forget the name of the little drug store turned construction company on the corner, then somehow it feels like they are denying that I ever spent many allowances there. If people don't even know that the neighborhood kids played baseball games on the lot where five houses now sit, then it feels like people are saying those games were never played. If people who are living in the apartments where I used to attend grade school don't even realize it was a school, it's like they are saying…well, you get the idea.”
I’m torn after reading Frank’s thoughts. I think he’s partially right, in that, sanctifying places might not be such a good idea, because others are never going to hold the same value as we do for particular places because our experiences are unique. And to hold out hope that someone else will value a place as much as we do when his or her experience hasn’t been the same seems a bit foolish. But at the same time, I think formal memorials are good things—they just happen to memorialize the people and events that the community at large is interested in remembering, rather than just the personal events in the life of one person. Maybe the personal events ought to be memorialized in our journals, scrapbooks, and photo albums and in so doing, we should relinquish the sanctified places back to the community so everybody can enjoy them and create their own memories without us feeling resentful.
I think I’ll give it a shot.
Technorati Tags: memorials, memories, Richard Ford
