what does it mean to be "connected"?
a.) "It's
who you know, not
what you know." -a common saying
b.) "interpersonal relationships"
isn't this term redundant?
hhmmm...
I've been reading Amy Tan's
The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings.
How eloquent she is, having a "penchant for words," as lil bro claims he himself has.
I wonder how old she is now, meaning, how many years has it taken her to practice, refine, and master this art of writing, storytelling, and communicating?
Here's an excerpt.
A relative once scolded my mother, "Why do you tell your daughter these useless stories? She can't change the past." And my mother replied, "It can
be changed. I tell her, so she can tell everyone, tell the whole world so they know what my mother suffered. That's how it can
be changed."
I think about what my mother said. Isn't the past what people remember--who did what, how and why? And what people remember, isn't that mostly what they've already chosen to believe? For so many years, my family believed my grandmother was a victim of society, who, sadly, took her own life, no more, no less.
In my writing room, I go back into the past, to that moment when my grandmother told my mother not to follow her footsteps. My grandmother and I are walking side by side, imagining the past differently, remembering it another way. Together we come upon a tomb of memories. We open it and release what has been buried for too long--the terrible despair, the destructive rage. We hurt, we grieve, we cry. And then we see what remains: the hopes, broken to bits but still there.
I look at the photograph of my grandmother. Together we write stories of things that were and shouldn't have been, or could have been, or might still be. We know the past can be changed We can choose what we should believe. We can choose what we should remember. That is what frees us, this choice, frees us to hope that we can redeem these same memories for the little girl who became my mother.
("My Grandmother's Choice", pp.103-4)
"I can choose what I should believe. I can choose what I should remember. This is what frees me, this choice, frees me to hope that I can redeem these same memories for the
mei-mei who became...
role not known yet"
Really?
Why did she use the word "should", like there's a set of expectations she needs to fulfill?
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