Memory Circular Drive
Some 🌀 thoughts on reading:
Yesterday evening I took a walk & ended up on a circular road off of a sort-of busy road. I flipped through Spotify and landed on an 80s playlist. But before this — before I made my way to the circular road — I had emailed my first-ever BFF, Lindsay, who had agreed to an “interview” with me. Sounds formal, but she’s helping me parse some memories of our hometown and offer up her own thoughts as I write. My most vivid memories with Lindsay were like 1982-1986-ish; the soundtrack was perfect.
Back to the circular road. A girl of about 7 or 8 whooshed by on roller skates. Well, ok, roller blades. And she was wearing a helmet. But strike those two details, and it could have been me & Lindsay lacing our skates, perching our pet rats on our shoulders (sorry, can’t address this now), and relishing that carefree feeling of gliding.
And then! I turned the bend and there was this woman walking in the distance, her back to me. The thick belt around her waist made it look like she was wearing an Ergo or similar baby carrier. It was about 6:30 and I figured she was trying to get a baby to sleep, just like I did with my firstborn. Round and round Idlewood Circle, hoping that the gentle bounce of my stride would force those eyelids shut.
But as I got closer to her, I realized that she was much older than I thought and was not wearing an Ergo…it was a fanny pack 😑. And then I acknowledged to myself that I didn’t know anyone who lives on this street and it was not a part of me or my life in any way whatsoever. My evening walk was just a tangential aside to the ins and outs of life here. For 15 minutes, however, it felt otherwise.
In my last newsletter, I wrote about something called Reader Response Criticism, i.e. that the main lens through which to view literature is the reader and his or her experience. I kind of like the idea of RRC — it makes reading personal — but as you can see, what we interpret is likely only beneficial to ourselves. The trick is savoring that experience and that lens but then pondering what others might see — a different “reality” — instead.
(Nonetheless, it was a nice walk around Memory Circular Drive.)
originally published on instagram