Monday, January 12, 2009

JMO - Small Observations

I was reading an article about Jane Birkin, her Website, when she was asked when she planned to write an autobiography. She said she wouldn't and didn't have any plans, and mostly because she said, "My memory is like a washing machine."

I like that visual and visualization. It leaves the mental door wide open to the whole array of interpretations, and how each of us would imagine our own memory and our own memories awash in our mind swirling and mixing with everything we are and have been and everything we've done and would like to do. A life in a wash. What would be in yours?

How small observations are so expressive. There's a small facet of Will Rogers in many of us, an off-hand comment about our life rings like an exploding star in the universe. I remember in climatology class, the professor recited the following quote, "Northern Europe has weather, the Mediterranean has climate." - Gertrude Stein. It couldn't have been better said.

I've always like observations like these, made famous by Will Rogers, collected in random thoughts and quotes along with James Geary's history of aphorisms. Sometimes there's a universe in a sentence, an exploding mental star of the obvious, complexity, simplicity, life, work, people, and everything else.

I've always liked one sentence observations because of the sheer power and imagination they contain and describe. Snippets of life holding a universe, in thought, expression and idea. What could be better to engage the mind? Ok, beside a good cup of coffee. Or, better with the coffee sitting in a comfortable cafe bathed in sunlight on a cold winter day.

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