feels sacred, a snapshot of the world before everything in it changed

~ Live & Learn

The mail sat in a pile on the counter by the stove. The National Geographic was rather lackluster that month. Several years ago I found that same issue in a used book store—December 1964—and have it here somewhere between all my books and papers. I doubt a thing like that is valuable fifty years later, but to me that magazine feels sacred, a snapshot of the world before everything in it changed for me. It was nothing special. The cover shows two ugly white birds, doves maybe, sitting on a cast-iron fence. A holy cross looms out of focus above them. The issue includes profiles of Washington, D.C., and some exotic vacation destinations in Mexico and the Middle East. That night, when it was new and still smelled of glue and ink, I opened it briefly to a picture of a palm tree against a pink sunset, then slapped it down on the kitchen table, disappointed. I preferred to read about places like India, Belarus, the slums of Brazil, the starving children in Africa.

~ Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen: A Novel

35 thoughts on “feels sacred, a snapshot of the world before everything in it changed”

  3. I so love those ‘little stories’ – imagine, to dive back to the first number(s) of NG. I ‘met’ these mags the first time when I lived in Toronto and I was madly in love with their contents. It’s like a trip down memory lane for me.
    And I agree with Sawsan, I find the doves lovely!
    Thanks for always finding something special 🙂

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      1. Dave, that was just a little ego-stroking of a particular Canadian! And it was hardly worth talking about as it was for less than two years….. But thanks for the ‘cool’ – I haven’t been called cool in a rather too long while 😉 (I’m a shameless compliment grabber, aren’t I just?!)

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          1. I was glad to return to Switzerland then, I was SO homesick. One of my sisters had a baby in that time too. And with hardly any contact with family and friends (except letters which took forever to arrive) it was very difficult for me. But much of what I learned in mastering my life and that of my then husband, I learned during that time so I’ll be forever thankful. But I never said I didn’t like Canada. I still think it is a often beautiful and amazing country.

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    1. Sadly, with living quarters at a prime, all these had to be chucked out. But of course it wd have been lovely to be able to keep them. I kept tons of now long defunct satirical magazines and I cried bitter tears when they had to go.

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  8. I am always intrigued by our human tenancy to look at the past as a ‘simpler’ time, when really, it was just a different time. I remember hiding under my desk in the 1960’s as we practiced for nuclear fallout because of the Cuban crisis. And it felt like the end of the world was close because of the Cold War and the assinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. And the Vietnam War and watching the civil rights movement from afar and moving to France and being frightened of the Algerian Crisis.

    And still, those National Geographics bring me back to memories of my childhood. Of reading them and oohing and aahing over the photographs and planning trips in my mind of the places I would go…

    And now, I search for issues from the 60s and 70s as their ink is best for mixed media art as applying a certain solvent moves the ink in mysterious and magical ways.

    Ahh yes. The times, they are a changin’.

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  9. I think it’s nice to read about both palm trees set against a sunset, as well as slums and starving children. Helps remind me that while there are significant challenges in the world, there is also beauty.

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    1. Alan, I read your comment earlier. And reflected on your previous comments. And you come as close to anyone that I know of being “pure” in thought. While none of us are Pure, you are as close to the ideal that I have intersected with…

      I dislike ideological purity, which doesn’t exist in nature. No one is pure. Humanity is always corrupt in one way or another, despite its touching need for gold-plated and laudable ideals. Everyone’s beliefs, when lived out, when activated, when embodied, are fungible, complex, contradictory, much more so than whatever it is they proclaim.

      ~ Rick Moody, The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony (Henry Holt & Company, August 6, 2019)

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      1. First a thank you.
        “doesn’t exist in nature.” That stands out for me. For in nature God reveals Himself. Things are what they are in observation. An apple is an apple and a pear is a pear. Neither is interchangeable just because by his nature man can be subjective. In that he can become corrupted. We know hunger by nature. We don’t have to be taught. If we eat too much or too little there are negative outcomes. But if we eat to satiated then all is well and in balance. All in nature has a margin of error. Corruption lies outside the boundaries. We have a choice through the free will given by God. We can live objectively within them happily or subjectively outside them unhappily. Peace is within, conflict is without. That is what is wrong with the world.
        -Alan

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  12. I don’t know that life was better back then, but, dare I say, the magazine was. I haven’t read NGM in a while, as it seems that the content has been cut so much it is not much more than a picture book anymore. But it’s a special publication to me still as it was a NG article that changed my life back in the 70’s when I read about the Puget Sound region and decided I would live there, and have since 1979. Best decision ever. Thanks for the reminder David!

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