I'm about to move on, as are a number of other people I've worked with for years, and a couple of us have fallen into the habit of late of telling stories from years ago to people who weren't around then. We haven't discussed these events for years, just letting them slip by as the next lot of tales act themselves out around us, but most lunchtimes over the last few weeks we've ended up remembering, and sharing those memories.
Some part of me is all too aware that I won't be at that place for much longer (a few days, now, and I'll have left) and, whilst it's good to be moving on, a lot of my memories over the last decade and a bit are tied to that job. This seems all the more poignant as many people have left recently and hardly anyone will be left from when I started. In my particular part of the place, no-one will be left who has been there long enough to remember some of the most vivid, frustrating, anecdote worthy times and I am aware of some urge to pass these on, even though I doubt anyone who is going to be left will really care.
The memories are only really important if you lived them.
Despite this, people are obsessed with looking back, with retelling tales. Perhaps it feels more like the stories really happened if we share them, especially if we can share the telling with someone else who was there.
Of course, it may have as much, if not more, to do with assuring ourselves who we are now. A story about how you used to eat massive piles of take-a-way by yourself? It's safe to talk about now, when you moderate what you eat or share it with someone else. Your story is a good point of contrast to show how far you've come, how much you've changed. Maybe your story is about how you used to spend all of your time on a particular hobby you now don't have time for. You are both reassuring yourself you still have that passion inside you and that you are busy and in demand in the present. Looking back can let us see where we are now, as well as where we were then.
What does it mean when we retell other people's stories? When we retell stories of people who have become archetypes and figures of myth and fairy-tale?
I suspect that is very much about telling ourselves where we are now, how we have moved on from the older versions of that tale. It's about looking at the tale through another lens.
My friends in the RASSSA group have been looking back to look at ourselves now, reflecting old tales in a modern mirror, and I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how my own anecdotes from only the last decade (not much time in the grand scheme of things) are reflections of the truth rather than wholly factual reports.
What with so many people leaving, I've been present at a number of leaving speeches (mine is next week and will likely involve me nodding a bit and sitting back down), and some of the anecdotes used have been about the same incidents as the ones I have been drawing on over lunch.
Here's the thing, though - I don't remember the events going the way other people say the did.
Even with tales we were part of, which happened very recently, a different view and a different lens leads to a different tale. We reflect ourselves back onto the stories.
It might be fun to get everyone in a family group to write their own version of a key event. You just know they would all be different.
I suppose we have to ask ourselves if that matters. And if we all only own our own version of an event we lived, then every version of an old tale is valid. I've been thinking about that, too, in terms of representation in film, TV and books. People cite the 'source' text as though it is immutable, as though it not only shouldn't, but can't, change. Which is ridiculous.
Shakespeare spent his life changing other tales. If it's good enough for Shakespeare...
I'm probably not going to start actively changing the identities of people in my own life stories, but when we look at old tales or at re-booted versions of tales only a few decades old, I don't think being too obsessed with how it 'really was' has much mileage. It is certainly not the only yardstick.
The news that Thor will be female and Captain America will be black is worth considering, here. That is not to say we should ignore how it was in the past (but if Thor can be a frog, and has been a frog before being a woman, then that tells us a lot about values in the past), and in fact we should not wash over issues and realities from days gone by, any more than I should let myself start believing my current workplace has been a constant dream of uninterrupted happiness, just because I am about to leave it. We also shouldn't hold fast to damaging habits and beliefs just because they are from the past.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I firmly believe we should expect our fictions, both those we know are fictions and the ones we believe to be accurate recounts of our own lives, to reflect our present views, and let's hope those reflections are something to be proud of.
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