I’ve just been leafing through an old notebook from my studies in Zimbabwe in 1994. Chicken scratch and scrawling images of experiences almost out of reach of my memory woven between moments that I will never forget. Journal entries were filed between lecture notes so the cadence of the pages changed with the candor and the content.

It was a very interesting rhythm to move from academic inquiry into the social and economic implications of The World Bank’s Economic Structural Adjustment Policy to the different levels of fear and excitement of a night spent in an underground speakeasy in the back alleys of Harare. I was embroiled in trying to deconstruct the social, geopolitical, and historical impediments and implications of equality, civil war and national redevelopment in Southern Africa while negotiating very personal tender moments facing racial and gender bias as it pertained to my ability to take care of and know myself and my humanity more deeply.

I’ll never be grateful enough for that journey.

There was a moment, lost in that old journal, where I found myself trying to forget where I am right now. Conjuring all of the power of my memory and cryptic clues from poorly written poems, and detailed lecture notes, I searched for smells and sounds and textures. I wanted to remember these moments in my body. And it started to happen.

I remembered the skittering sounds of nocturnal creatures after lost in the Chimanimani mountains that forced us to sleep in a cave as the night had taken away signs of a trail home not knowing if I would find it the next day. I remembered the taste of meat just off the fire washed down with cold lager among a circle of men hearing stories of war realizing that I knew nothing of bravery. I remembered the feeling of sweating from the work of breathing standing in the shade of a tree on a 104 degree morning watching women, on their second trip, carry their firewood, children and the day’s water 5 kilometers each way to the nearest pump, and realizing that I knew nothing of the meaning of hard work. I remembered the shade of purple of the Jacaranda trees lining the streets of Harare knowing that I had never seen such a perfect purple. I remembered so many things, but then my head began to throb.

I was spending too much time conjuring the past. I was stuck in the memories not allowing their song to echo forward to now. This young man in Southern Africa is one of the ancestors of the person I am becoming. By isolating this experience in the past I limited his connection to my current practice. I am so grateful for my memory to keep him alive, but it cannot come at the cost of his voice not being a part of the conversation I am having today to help inform the invitations I offer the world tomorrow.

How can I listen intently to past experiences while staying grounded in the present? How do I keep nostalgia from becoming stagnant from too much looking back? What part of the retelling of my adventures holds truth?