Monday, November 2, 2009

What We Miss From Our Childhood

What We Miss From Our Childhood from Timothy Koide on Vimeo.


We all yearn for something from our past. For me, as well as many other people that I know, that something lurks in the quotidian memories of our childhood, and is usually quantified by an equally common object, place, or person. For my buddy Josh, that common object is one of the greatest postwar suburban children’s phenomena—action figures.

Talking about action figures may seem trite. It may seem that to hold on to something so make-believe trivializes the reality of our childhoods. But, to me, as I think it is to Josh, the make believe world of childhood is what is lasting and important, not the reality. Reality is for our parents, and photo albums. It was, after all, out of the ether of our imaginations that our dreams grew. The same dreams that buoy us today—at least, ideally. At any rate, I still appreciate the child-like imaginations that us aging people can access from time to time. Thanks to Sam (Josh’s son), this video maintains some authenticity in real time, and not just in nostalgic memory, of that imagination.

What do you miss from your childhood?
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3 comments:

  1. WhitneyNovember 3, 2009 at 9:50 PM

    tim. This is amazing. The images of Sam walking around in the background are so fantastic. And the story to boot. This is scott, not whitney.

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  2. SamYamNovember 16, 2009 at 2:53 PM

    That's funny that Sam is Josh's son because Sam (me) is Josh's brother in my fam. I miss my cats by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SnoopNovember 22, 2009 at 4:49 PM

    well, well, well. Dropping a little bloggy, blog. I am so pleased to know.

    I just read this today. Nobokov (on the role of fiction, and I extend that to childhood memory): “to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade.”

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Why tell our stories?

Telling stories is a tremendous validation of the vitality and importance of each one of our lives. The oral traditions of many societies throughout time have been the primary vehicle for cultural transference. It is an incredibly powerful tool, and one that I have never overlooked. I consider myself a storyteller--and I often find that I am telling other people's stories. So, why not create a forum, like so many others have done, to do that?

In thinking about our friends, family, and ethereal wanderings in the abstract, we realize that our comprehensive life experiences are worth documenting. The purpose of the discourse on this blog is simple and indulgent--but not selfishly so. We want to glorify the everyday (and not so everyday) experiences that each of us traverse so that we can look forward to each and every simple day in the future.