Item: 1 copy of Let's Go: USA (On a Budget)
I wrote awhile back about my fondness for my 1987 copy of the Let's Go travel guide; the new one was a lovely birthday present and has been my summer reading. I've been busily adding to my list of trips I want to take.
Currently I'm in the middle of the section on Oklahoma. Last week I was reading the Washington, DC section and found that it kept mentioning places that were "local favorites" that I had not only never been to, but never even heard of. Also, it mentioned a lot of places that hadn't even existed when I lived there.
It was similar when I read the Iowa City section, which also mentioned popular places that I couldn't recollect at all, and street names that I recognized but couldn't place geographically.
It's no news that memory fades, or that this is a form of loss. I would have thought that I knew these places: Washington DC, where I lived for 6 years, or Iowa City, which was small enough you'd think I'd know it by heart, but I don't, not anymore, because they are different places now. Others have written much more eloquently about this idea, this experience of expecting something familiar and being met with something unfamiliar, generally expressed as you can't go home again. One of my favorites is John Steinbeck, who stopped by the Monterey Peninsula in Travels with Charley and wrote: "The place of my origin had changed, and I had not changed with it. In my memory it stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me."
No matter how far back I go, none of the places I've ever lived are the same place now that I lived in then. Probably the closest is Santa Barbara, because Santa Barbara is very particular about things like expansion and permits for new buildings. But even there, the last building I lived in is no longer standing. This is part of the bitterness of leaving, that you can't ever really go back to the same place you left. I don't know why it is that people go on expecting to anyway. People who still live in any of these places are able to absorb change, whereas I regard it as betrayal.
Currently I'm in the middle of the section on Oklahoma. Last week I was reading the Washington, DC section and found that it kept mentioning places that were "local favorites" that I had not only never been to, but never even heard of. Also, it mentioned a lot of places that hadn't even existed when I lived there.
It was similar when I read the Iowa City section, which also mentioned popular places that I couldn't recollect at all, and street names that I recognized but couldn't place geographically.
It's no news that memory fades, or that this is a form of loss. I would have thought that I knew these places: Washington DC, where I lived for 6 years, or Iowa City, which was small enough you'd think I'd know it by heart, but I don't, not anymore, because they are different places now. Others have written much more eloquently about this idea, this experience of expecting something familiar and being met with something unfamiliar, generally expressed as you can't go home again. One of my favorites is John Steinbeck, who stopped by the Monterey Peninsula in Travels with Charley and wrote: "The place of my origin had changed, and I had not changed with it. In my memory it stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me."
No matter how far back I go, none of the places I've ever lived are the same place now that I lived in then. Probably the closest is Santa Barbara, because Santa Barbara is very particular about things like expansion and permits for new buildings. But even there, the last building I lived in is no longer standing. This is part of the bitterness of leaving, that you can't ever really go back to the same place you left. I don't know why it is that people go on expecting to anyway. People who still live in any of these places are able to absorb change, whereas I regard it as betrayal.
posted by Karen at 8:37 PM
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