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October 28, 2005
Some thoughts about rearview mirrors and looking back
Bob recently asked in a comment about the purpose of blogging, and about making sense of memories.
...do you have any thoughts about your life...? Writing things like that down help me to see patterns in them or to reach conclusions about my memories.
This question, in addition to this post about bad poetry, got me thinking.
When I was in about 4th grade, my teacher read aloud to us, and got me hooked on the the Spirit Flyer series. If I read it now, I'd most likely roll my eyes, but to my little 9 year old imagination, the metaphor of Christian life to a magic bicycle was, well, magic.
This magic bicycle could do neat things like fly and help you understand Scripture. Once, they used the side-view mirrors to understand John Kramar's history. (Get it? Using the rear-view mirror to make sense of the past?)
Maybe that's part of this blog for me. I know without a doubt my memories and experiences are meaningful. While I'm living them, they rarely make sense, but once I develop a little distance from them, they make sense, like a Georges Seurat painting, or a dot-to-dot like I used to do while in kindergarten. Maybe what I am doing here, in my little blog, is drawing dots to connect, or finding connections between these events in my life.
And another thing...keep thinking about the "rearview mirror as the key to making sense of the past analogy"...Bob once broke the rearview mirror off my college car, and it never was the same after that. About once a year, I took it to a car-glass-repair shop and asked them if they could glue it back for me. (They always did, and with no charge.) But the few days until I actually got it done were hard. Try driving with no rear-view! You still look there, where the mirror ought to be, and it's distracting to have no sense of what's behind the car. Are there some people who never can tell about their past? Are there times when we, driving our "life-cars," don't have a view of the past and so can't make our way forwards as well, and safely, as we ought?
Ok. I don't know about you, but I like that metaphor, clumsy and childish though you may rate it. It still helps me think through this issue. Plus I am tired and Husband is waiting for me so he can fall asleep. Good night, and have a good Friday.
Ponderings. | By The Newest Worker | 10:52 PM
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Comments
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh man, that was so funny! I remember feeling sooooo bad about the mirror, but then just looking at it in my hand was so surreal. I had to laugh and I'm laughing now.
So having a good sense of one's past is at least as important as having a rear-view mirror. Hmm. I can buy that. I think I would also add to it by saying that people who don't have any sense of history (personal and otherwise) make me at least as nervous as drivers who become road hazards because they aren't using their mirrors.
Posted by: bob at October 29, 2005 04:37 PM
Oh, no, it gets funnier. Imagine the look I'd get from the auto-body-glass-shop guys (you know the type: mechanics who could beat you up in a second, but who will treat a lady with deference and kid-gloves)...the look I'd get when I'd say, "Oh, my ex-boyfriend broke the rearview mirror off the windshield once."
Yeah. They thought to themselves, "Good thing they broke up or I'd break that guy in half!"
That's much more laugh-worthy.
Posted by: Worker at October 30, 2005 02:38 PM