If you haven't read AVI's description of how different a trip looks to adults and to the children, go read it. If you ever traveled as or with a child, you'll recognize yourself.
I knew we'd all have different views of our big trip to Montana, and I knew memory was slippery, so I took notes every night and asked my wife to take notes every night and insisted, begged, and offered bribes to the kids to take notes. After the trip I wrote up my and my better half's notes, and then asked for the kids'. That was over 10 years ago, and I'm still waiting. Every now and then they let slip something they did or saw, but ... I wanted their stories seen through their eyes recorded so that their memories of the trip wouldn't be shaped by my story. Memories can fade a bit, but black and white stories don't. I'd like to hear their descriptions of the emergency visit to the doctor, or waiting on a crumbling precipice while I went to find rope, or wolfing canned stew before the thunderstorm hit. The floor is open :-) I can try to write up the tale you told of trying to kill a wasps' nest with a cousin allergic to bee stings
3 comments:
Well, as the person who was at the emergency doctor's visit... My head hurt? It is slightly fuzzy, and I blame the fever. At the time, we did not realize the point of writing out things that you had seen yourself. Only later do we remember that we spent a lot of time apart on that trip.
I am, however, still bitter at being the designated washer-woman when everything we had got soaked during one of the many storms. I think I spent 6 straight hours in that laundromat.
If you read AVI's post you know what I mean: even when we were together we saw different things.
I remember driving and tents taking up a good deal of time for me...
Indeed. We certainly saw different things, but as a child, it made no sense to me how adults could see things differently.
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