Wo ist der Shoebox vom vergangenen Jahr? *
Excuse the pseudo German. This is not so much a post, more of a thought which has struck me more than once over the last few years.
At home I have a shoebox full of family memorabilia, documents, photos, letters, etc. My sisters have even more such archive material. I spoke to a blogger friend recently and we looked at his photo records of family from the last 100+ years.
My point is, what happens now? We all have a huge amount of irreplaceable family and social documents stored on our computers or on servers around the world.
Where is that shoebox now, one that future generations can leaf through? The big institutes and concerns have a plan of course, but what about us? Anyone thought about this? Made a Will recently?
* The quote comes from Bertold Brecht /Kurt Weill - "Nanna's Lied"
"Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend?
Wo ist die Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?"
"Where are the tears from yesterday evening?
Where are the snows of yesteryear?"
And I left it too late. A similar thought occurred to me about 5 years ago, just as the last of a generation died. Now, there is no connection between the shoebox and reality, no names, no stories, no pain, no life.
Actually, I suspect that almost the reverse will be true in future. In the past we had so little documented it was hard to make sense. These days, we have so much documented it will be even harder.
And the things that make a real difference? Letters.
The huge potential digital social archive is another thing, but maybe we just need a few phyical, personal items to keep the links with the past/future
(Thanks for the comments as always)
We've been musing much about this same "achive" issue as my reads letters she wrote home 40 and more years ago from Cuba and France and.....
So, I'll be following the Brechtian musings.