We go through our lives not seeing. Our daily lives are two dimensional and flat. Each ordinary day the same, no edge, nothing to distinguish one day from another. Frequently, these typical days are not recorded in memory, in photographs, they are so much alike, unmemorable.
What we remember is the unusual, the out of the ordinary days and hours. Special events and treats, tragic times, those days with sharpness, they stick out. They catch and make a memory.
We take pictures of picnics, births, graduations, events that will never happen again, so we will remember. Pictures in print, pictures in memory. But none of the usual things.
I remember the specialness of having a whole box of nearly-new crayons at the end of one school year, but I don’t remember what I did with them, or what I planned to do with them. I baby-sat many hours for three younger brothers, but cannot recall a single detail of it. It was all the same, I suppose.
Norman Rockwell, the American illustrator, documented the details of everyday American life for us. Playing, going to school, mealtime. He knew the importance of these repetitive, common place events, and he recorded them for us for all time.
This morning, as I watched Thanh’s family and staff prepare the table of food in front of the restaurant for a Vietnamese Lunar Festival, I saw so many commonplace and familiar things. The excitement of hurrying ---- set up the tables, level them off, bring the food, not enough tables --- add more, bring more food. The intensity of making the food special --- perfectly chosen, deliciously prepared, attractively arranged. It was all very familiar, and very unfamiliar at the same time.
We have found it to be true that you cannot fully understand your own culture unless you compare it with another. You also cannot know your own life, your own experiences, until you compare it with another. In this way, you come to know your own life, your own culture, intimately.
Happy lunar holiday!