At the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 19,341 feet above sea level. 1994.
Telling Stories
In my photography project, “Rigged-up,” I’m collecting stories from the Kite-boarders I’ve been photographing for several years.
There is an insidious feeling of irrelevance associated with getting older. Our children grow up and leave home and slowly we recognize we are not central figures in their lives anymore. The frustrating question of purpose sneaks back into our minds, even though we thought we’d answered it when we were young, and it is easy to believe that age is taking it away from us.
But the accumulation of years is not only about loss. There is a steady stockpiling of stories that happen to us with time, and these make a treasure trove of life-lessons waiting to be shared with others.
I can still tell my grown-up kids what it felt like to watch the sunrise from on top of Mount Kilimanjaro. I can still tell them the story of being confronted by a man and his child in a hospital tent at a time in my life when I was a doctor wearing a military uniform. The man, with tears in his eyes, held his young son tightly in his arms. They were “collateral damage” in a war they did not ask for. The boy, who was badly injured, looked right through me with a vacant stare. Their quiet presence before me spoke loudly about the pain and sadness that had been thrust upon them, and left me forever aware that war is mostly about innocent victims.
Stories inform about the moments of beauty and brutality that string together to make a life. Stories, as my friend Kyle Banks says, want to be told. And stories need to be told so that each new generation can learn from the experiences and mistakes of previous generations.
The remedy for the despair about getting old is to recognize that aging is less about loss and more about transitioning to the role of story-teller: a job that will always be relevant to any society wanting to survive.
Monte