To Redeem

Either memory freezes us or it prods us into a search for meaning. That meaning may be light and fanciful, loving, or range over the landscape of emotions. Sometimes memory urges us toward forgiveness—for ourselves, for others.

A memory may act as a place-mark, as a turning point, as a chronology. Memory is imprecise, varies with time.

My memories are not unique, although the particulars may be unique. Writing about release this year took me on a journey—and a quest for understanding.

I didn't select "release"—it selected me. The word allowed me the time to look at how we all hide things not only from others, but from ourselves.

Earlier I said that release was about love. We all have the chance to release, to fling love into the universe.

To release also means to unfreeze, to unblock.

Steven Birkerts says that the memoirist "writes to redeem experience, to reawaken the past, and to find its pattern..."

While I didn't intend to write a memoir—much of where I ended up was memoir.