Record Keepers
By Daniel Stallings, East Sierra Branch
We are living through major historical events. While some of us may not want to dwell upon this fact, there is an important job we writers, artists, and storytellers must remember to do. We are the record keepers. Think of the diaries written in bygone centuries, the drawings telling stories on the walls of caves, the written records preserved and treasured across the ages. These are the stories that tie us to our history, that provide alternating viewpoints, to create a fuller picture of our journey as human beings. And think of the stories that are left out of the narrative. Don’t let your story be one of them.
It’s the reason why I wrote my dad’s story as a submariner for Scenes from Lives of Service, our Ridge Writers’ anthology of veteran stories. Because I wanted his story to be told, to add to the narrative a story that doesn’t get shared. It’s why I agreed to be interviewed for a blog about our earthquake last year. I needed people to understand what we lived through and what it meant to the people who actually experienced it. It’s why I love stories told by people whose lives do not echo my own, people from all walks of life and all ranges of experience.
We need those stories. Right now, there are many changes going on in our lives. If these moments have affected you personally, have altered your own personal history, write that story. Because those stories — the stories of those at the frontlines, in the crosshairs, and even those who were left behind to struggle on their own — are the stories we need to hear and need to protect. There’s no rule saying you even have to share it, but if it’s never told, then no one will ever know. That piece of the record is lost forever. We are the writers, the artists, the chroniclers of the world. Just by telling our own stories, we preserve the important tales we have to tell for future generations.
“Record Keepers” originally appeared in the March 2021
edition of Writers of the Purple Sage,
newsletter of the East Sierra Branch.