For the past week, I’ve been taking my four-year-old son to bright, summery Lakeview pool for swimming lessons. There is nothing like enthusiastic, competent, 17-year-old girls who are good with kids to renew one’s faith in humankind. While I keep one eye on my son, dogpaddling in the clear, sparkling water with a noodle under his arms, the other’s on a book of essays, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory by Patricia Hampl.
Some of her writings don’t exactly match the sunny, good times vibe of the day, with pieces about Polish poet and writer Czeslaw Milosz, who speaks of “looking into the hells of our century” (the 20th) and Jewish/Catholic saint Edith Stein, a victim of the hell known as Auschwitz. “Memory is not just commemoration;” writes Hampl, “it is ethical power.”
It is a strange thing to be reading about such things while sitting by a pool, but good too. Perhaps this type of life where kids get to have swimming lessons can triumph over the kind of life where hatred spawned the Holocaust.
To continue my juxtaposing ways, I drive over to Maplewood to look at the destruction/progress on this radiant day.
The 800 and 900 blocks of Maplewood now look like a tornado or a war has hit them. Several of the houses are completely gone and others have been ravaged for what is valuable. As I look at this process, two metaphors leap to mind, one cup-half-empty and the other cup-half-full. The cranes, work crews, people going in and out of the houses remind me of vultures picking through the remains. On the other hand, when I look inside the glassless windows of my old house and see that the radiators and fireplace are gone, I tell myself that our house is like an organ donor and parts of it will live on in other homes.
The above paragraph begs the question, “Why are you continuing to drive by the neighborhood when it’s such a painful sight?” The whole process is like a slow motion death penalty for these houses.
The only answer I can give is that it’s to bear witness. I think there is inherent value in observing and describing events, even when they are depressing and register lightly on the historical scale. Hampl writes, “If we refuse to do the work of creating this personal version of the past, someone else will do it for us.”
For me, it would be even worse if this neighborhood was being eliminated with no one watching. I appreciate the coverage of this subject by PJS sports editor, blogger, and former Maplewood resident Kirk Wessler and blogger, Peoria, Illinoisian.
Some of her writings don’t exactly match the sunny, good times vibe of the day, with pieces about Polish poet and writer Czeslaw Milosz, who speaks of “looking into the hells of our century” (the 20th) and Jewish/Catholic saint Edith Stein, a victim of the hell known as Auschwitz. “Memory is not just commemoration;” writes Hampl, “it is ethical power.”
It is a strange thing to be reading about such things while sitting by a pool, but good too. Perhaps this type of life where kids get to have swimming lessons can triumph over the kind of life where hatred spawned the Holocaust.
To continue my juxtaposing ways, I drive over to Maplewood to look at the destruction/progress on this radiant day.
The 800 and 900 blocks of Maplewood now look like a tornado or a war has hit them. Several of the houses are completely gone and others have been ravaged for what is valuable. As I look at this process, two metaphors leap to mind, one cup-half-empty and the other cup-half-full. The cranes, work crews, people going in and out of the houses remind me of vultures picking through the remains. On the other hand, when I look inside the glassless windows of my old house and see that the radiators and fireplace are gone, I tell myself that our house is like an organ donor and parts of it will live on in other homes.
The above paragraph begs the question, “Why are you continuing to drive by the neighborhood when it’s such a painful sight?” The whole process is like a slow motion death penalty for these houses.
The only answer I can give is that it’s to bear witness. I think there is inherent value in observing and describing events, even when they are depressing and register lightly on the historical scale. Hampl writes, “If we refuse to do the work of creating this personal version of the past, someone else will do it for us.”
For me, it would be even worse if this neighborhood was being eliminated with no one watching. I appreciate the coverage of this subject by PJS sports editor, blogger, and former Maplewood resident Kirk Wessler and blogger, Peoria, Illinoisian.
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