Morning Musings: Memories, Stories, and Relation

I am happy to find myself here again––next to the window with an astounding binaural soundtrack. Black birds chatter close, then far away in my left ear. The slop-slop-slopping of my dog’s tongue on water, then crunching his protein squares, in my right. Now that I’m leaning in, I hear the roar of our old fridge, which sounds like it’s about to take flight. But the breeze gently hits my left ear and the tip of my nose, then calls me back to the birds.

I used to loathe birds out of a crippling fear born from a very silly 4-year-old story. I was supposedly chased and, in my words, “terrorized,” by a rooster. These, of course, were stories passed down to me by my father and grandfather. The scenes played out like movies in my head, but I can’t tell if they are simply dramatizations to match the scripts or real memories. Is there any way to truly keep a memory alive? Perhaps our modern technologies are the only way to ensure it, while the reality surely slips from our neuronal grasp.

I love to capture moments and share them with the world so they can live on forever. Through song, this feels most easy for me to do. But, that’s a very personal experience I’m sharing. But, through film, photography, writing––these are methods that extend the story well beyond me, even though it comes from my lens and point of view. But, when others delight in that, connect through that, it binds us together. It becomes clearer that we have each experienced something similar in a profound or even simple moment. Storytelling, then, is ultimately about relating to one another. And, it does seem that this is the ultimate human experience: To relate.

Welcome to my new Morning Musings, straight from my morning journal. I hope you enjoy.