What would we do without the stories of our lives to share with each other and understand our own? The letters, journals, newspapers, all so important to putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
I loved these walls made of clothing as a memorial to the clothes the victims lost as they went to concentration camps, and the clothes they were given when they got there...so much color lost and replaced with drab black and white stripes...just like their lives, stripped of color and joy. How could this happen? What does this say about us as human beings that we can be so indoctrinated to harm other human beings? What have we learned from it? Why is it still happening today?
This week it's been Feminist Mormon Housewive's Year of Polygamy, I can't get enough of it...these are my people, the Mormons, I have polygamist ancestors, I was raised Mormon, the majority of my family are practicing Mormons. There are a lot of them (episodes...and Mormon stories) so I have lots of commuting to listen to more stories but was absolutely stricken by the final episode today (do I ever do anything in order?). Lindsay does an amazing work with these stories, her research, her essays and her interviews. I look forward to listening to many more. How can we better appreciate the experiences they went through than listening to their stories, acknowledging their joy, pain, and experiences...being witnesses to their existence? Maybe it will help me understand my own Mormon history, my own Mormon experience. It feels especially personal since it has affected me through spiritual polygamy, something that is actively practiced in mainstream Mormonism today. I love this author, her latest book is about just this topic. When she requested stories for her research I sent my own...along with 8000 others. There are many still being affected deeply by this issue.
One of the faculty at my university did research on Chinese immigrants. A comprehensive journal was found that a man kept daily during one of the most persecuted times for early Chinese immigrants. He never wrote about it. He wrote about his daily activities, his family, his goals. Her research was to analyze the data and with other researchers put it in context, understand what it means to keep a history and not write about the persecution he undoubtedly faced within his group...did he personally not experience it? Did he not want to focus on it? What does it mean when we include or exclude parts of our stories? It reminded me of some of my own sordid periods of my life, I rarely wrote about the details or the abuses I felt...why? I'm not even sure. It was usually too overwhelming...the experience was more than I could bear and it was too hard to understand so impossible to write. Sometimes it would take many years before I could go back and analyze it, try and understand it. I have no doubt I will be doing this for the rest of my life with things that have happened to me and my children. Maybe that was similar for him?
What about my story...or yours? What are we leaving behind, what will people know about us? It's my goal to be real, to write my real truth, my views and perspectives...they matter, they all matter. Maybe not today or tomorrow but someday to someone, maybe they will. All I can do is leave it behind, all that I have to give is my story.
