Memoir

Anyone who rummages about in the past and also writes, knows that it is impossible to capture an entire experience within the confines of a sentence or a book of sentences. When I read a memoir written by a talented writer, I am aware that despite how articulate, moving, and true something seems there is always a part that can't be captured.

In Patricia Hampl's book, I Could Tell You Stories she writes, "A story, we sense, is the only possible habitation for the burden of our witnessing."

Even the best of writers when telling a story from their own life cannot capture the entire story. We may be moved to tears, to laughter, to anger, to even feel as if we experience the story —but not in its entirety.

I love two words Hampl uses—burden and witnessing. Something about the juxtaposition, the connection between those words, makes me think of how some stories have a weight that we carry. And some stories need to be told or written down for our soul, or for those hearing or reading the story.