(reflections)

When reflecting on the person I want to be and the people I want to partner my life with, I find stories greatly impact my imagination of what the “ideal life” looks like. During my reflection time, a little thought popped into my head:

I don’t want to just tell facts; I want to share stories.
I don’t desire a simple genealogy; let’s create history.

Lately, I’ve been reading, “My Friends”¹, by Fredrik Backman. There are many great things about this novel and points worth reflecting on, so I highly encourage people to read the book. What remains constant throughout every novel by Backman is his intriguing way of telling stories. The lives shared in “My Friends” are primarily told through a character named, Ted. Backman weaves the story line by line, coming back to the same story-points and giving the reader more information bit by bit each time he re-tells the story. The story is mesmerizing to me; I am drawn in deeper and deeper. Slowly, I begin to empathize with the characters, laugh with them, cry with them… I feel their stories because Ted is not just telling the facts, he is sharing the essence of what it means to be alive.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”². Backman repeats this questions throughout his novel and shares how each character responds to such a question posed by Mary Oliver. He repeats it so much that readers are forced into an internal pondering of their own, what am I doing? How am I living fully? What can I learn from these 14-year-old children?

Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day³, is a self-reflection poem about noticing the world around you. Each character in the novel experiences life so differently due to their home life and personalities. Yet, readers see their interactions and realize each person in the group is needed to bring meaning and protection to the other members. The season of this book is firmly set in the summer of these children’s lives (both literally and metaphorically). While Backman quotes the last line of Oliver’s poem, I love the sentences leading up to the closing question.

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?“

The way we live is a form of prayer and devotion, each person is invited to pay attention to the world both exterior and interior. What is the best way to live our lives? How does one fully enjoy a summer day? What story are we telling through our choices/adventures in life?

It breaks my heart to witness people self-isolating, devoid of any meaningful relationships in their present reality. Artificial experiences through technology replace the drive and suppress the desire notice the setting we have been put in. Many books, essays, and poems have spoken of the downfalls of living in an alternate reality (read: 1984, Ready Player One, Fahrenheit 451, anything by Wendell Berry, and many more). 1984 speaks of a culture where emotions are suppressed and dopamine is abused to gratify people into submission. Ready Player One highlights the dissociative nature of video games, robbing young generations of their youth. Fahrenheit 451, one of my favorites, reveals how those in power redirect attention to fruitless endeavors and provide instant gratification which ultimately results in a thoughtless hoard called society. We have only been given one life here on earth, this should be reason enough to be attentive to the moments we give and take from one another.

Driving is one of the most contemplative activities for me. The other day, as I sat at a traffic light thinking about my future and the dreams I am pursuing when it dawned on me that I was an active agent in my own life. This is a simple truth that I forget more often than I’d like to admit. Of course I am an active agent in my life! Yet, when barriers come in, I can get deflated or momentarily defeated. How can pursue my dream when I keep struggling with _(fill in the blank)_? Everyone has barriers in life, the people who creatively fight for what they believe in are the ones who reveal active trust that they have a story worth telling.

I don’t want to just tell facts; I want to share stories.
I don’t desire a simple genealogy; let’s create history.

I can choose to exist in a “factual” space (staying to the status quo) or I can exist fully, feel deeply, experience widely. A genealogy is a list of names and relations on a paper, someone’s entire life is summed up as a name and date. “Hannah Hayes, 1998-present”. When life is viewed as a genealogy, history becomes dates to be memorized, and everything is two-dimensional. We live two-dimensional lives when we choose to absent mindedly move through life, memorize the facts, and live in an “isolated togetherness”. If we know nothing of the co-worker sitting next to us except their name and position, are we truly living or just existing together? In dating lives or marriage, do we view our partners as a list of check boxes/facts or fully dimensional humans?

We choose to be active agents; we can create histories for ourselves and with others. History is being worked out from the dawn of time through us today and onward ’til the end. Inspiration to embrace intentional lives comes from the stories we hear from others. These people don’t have to be historical, we are invited to listen to the stories of our co-workers, which will color in our existence and build connectedness. Everyone has a story to tell, but if we are not curious, we will miss out on our “one wild and precious life”⁴.

Each of us is a storyteller in our own way. There are people who just seem to be so dang good at it (Fredrik Backman being one of my favorite published storytellers). One of the greatest delights in life is asking someone a question and receiving a story in response. Louisa, an 18-year-old girl in “My Friends” is on the receiving end of Ted’s storytelling. While he could answer her (abundant) questions with just the facts, he chooses not to. Instead, Ted seems to realize that Louisa needs this story as a comfort to her present condition and a challenge for the adventure she is embarking on. Perhaps Ted also needs to tell the story again, for the same reasons. And, maybe, we readers need comfort and challenge just as much as the fictional characters.

1. #1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman | Simon & Schuster ↩︎
2. Mary Oliver, The Summer Day ↩︎
3. Who made the world?
   Who made the swan, and the black bear?
   Who made the grasshopper?
   This grasshopper, I mean —
   the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
   the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
   who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
   who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
   Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
   Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
   I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
   I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
   into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
   how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
   which is what I have been doing all day.
   Tell me, what else should I have done?
   Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
   Tell me, what is it you plan to do
   with your one wild and precious life? ↩︎
4. Mary Oliver, The Summer Day ↩︎