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| My diploma and a silk scarf with the Faculty's emblem |
But the memory is a powerful thing. I can still remember most vividly the day I saw the Dalai Lama. It was the summer of 1999 and I was visiting a friend in Germany. I'm usually terrible with names and dates though.
I remember walking down the street with my friend and we both saw the Dalai Lama just as he was being escorted into a diplomatic car. We literally stopped dead in the middle of the street nudging one another. We probably looked ridiculous too.
A moment later the diplomatic car drove past us and the Dalai Lama looked at my friend and me. Our eyes met and he nodded in a sign of recognition and smiled at us. Had I been rummaging through my bag looking for the camera I would have missed it.
Three weeks ago I attended the graduation ceremony at our Faculty. I'm usually eager to skip these fancy events because I find them a bit exaggerated and phony but since the current dean is one of my favourite professors and my parents really really wanted to go, I caved in and off we went.
It was nice. No fluff, no phony stuff. The ceremony was just under an hour long. Perfect.
When my turn came to walk on stage to accept my diploma, I didn't wave at my parents or salute the crowd. I walked straight up to the dean, we shook hands and he gave me my diploma.
The one blurry picture my mum took is pretty lame but most importantly completely insignificant. What I'll remember for the rest of my life is the dean's warm smile and the sound of his voice as he congratulated me and wished me luck.
I agree with you, you miss the moment if you are busy trying to take a picture to 'capture the moment'. How wonderful that the Dali Lama nodded at you!
ReplyDeleteYes it was one of those moments in life one cherishes forever. I'm not star struck and I don't really get that whole celebrity obsession, but the Dalai Lama and a few other famous people I've met that I respect emanate a certain energy. He emanated peace and harmony even from the distance of 5 meters through a glass window.
DeleteI never learned how to use a camera because I love to be in the moment and feel a camera gets in my way. My son is the same way so when he took me to Paris I only came home with a handful of photos. I was so upset and treasure those photos but soon realized my memory is powerful as ou say and the photos are not necessary for me to remember every moment.
ReplyDeleteI did a post on travelling about a month ago. It annoys me when people come back from abroad and shove pictures around that show some very famous landmark with them standing next to it. The web is full of far better pictures of the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur and the exhibits from the Louvre.
DeleteWhat I expect from people who've been abroad is to share the sounds, smells, intricate details of the daily life of the local population, basically the stuff that I can't find in Lonely Planet guide. Few people really get the real point of travelling.
The most significant moments of my life, have been the moments my daughters were born. No " just after " pictures from those moments. Yet they are, and will be the strongest emotional times I ever have, or will have.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, there are good postcards of Paris as well ; )
Another excellent example, Mette. I know it's popular to film the birth of a child, but I could never do something like that. I think people can be really weird.
DeleteYou have captured those moments forever in your mind,
ReplyDeleteand with such eloquence shared them with us. Ida
thanks ida :-)
DeleteI'm always intrigued by the correlation between sensory input and memory, how scent and sound provide a much clearer picture in my mind than visual imagery. The infamous Proust passage keeps coming to mind, one of my all time favourite literary reference :-)
Have a great week!
I wanted to skip my college graduation ceremony, too, but I remember that my parents insisted that I attend. Ironically, they got bored quickly and wanted me to leave early. I refused, because as it turned out, I'd been seated next to a good friend and we'd been having fun chatting and singing throughout the ceremony.
ReplyDeleteA few years later, that friend died suddenly. That ceremony is my last memory of him, and I'm so glad I had that bit of time with him. I have no idea if any pictures were taken on graduation day, but the only one that would have mattered to me would have been a picture of me with my friend on that day.
Ms. M thanks for sharing this personal story. Dealing with mortality and the fear of letting life slip past me is another thing that occupies my thoughts more often than I'd care to admit.
DeleteCongrats on receiving your diploma! Pictures never do justice to a place or event anyways. Most of the time it's one of those, "You had to be there..." situations when viewing other people's photos.
ReplyDeleteThe other reason for this post is also the fact that I've gotten involved in a project /training course that aims to educate people how to reach out and connect to people with visual disabilities (whether completely or only partially blind).
DeleteI'm fascinated to listen to their stories on how they formulate ideas, how they perceive the world around them when so much relies solely on the visual input and of course it got me thinking how much do we really detect with other senses but are completely oblivious to it.
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ReplyDeletewow...congratulations on receiving your diploma! I consider my graduation dates to be of the most memorable in my life_even now. And like you, I am not into recording and photographing events. The truth is that I enjoy seeing photos of past events that were fun but I tend to under_photograph because I get annoyed with the obsessive photographing by most people, so I do the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you do have one or two blurry pictures, that you attended the event.
Enjoy the accomplishment! xx
I'm the same way, all those cameras snapping photos away...pose like this, smile this way agh!
Deletea few blurry pics and the diploma + scarf, what more do I really need?
Congratulations! Thank you for sharing this story. I feel like I was right there with your parents and Mr. C, feeling proud of you :).
ReplyDelete