the listography project

I have been making lists for years. My favorite lists are often morbid: songs for my funeral, things I'd like to be remembered for, what I'd want placed in my coffin or my last supper menu. (We have a resting place for our bodies, why not our lives?) I am grateful for this life even when it's painful, and somehow these list meditations sharpen my focus or help me to hone in on and be saturated by an emotion that comes with a memory, in the same way a photograph can. I can't make a list on "my favorite games from childhood" without remembering what it was like to hit the little cubes out of the "Don't Break The Ice" game on high anxiety because the little guy is about to fall through the ice. So listing can also point to areas of our memory of experience that one day slipped into the recesses of our brain.

I have been a contemplative gal since I was five, and at the same time, organized and a daydreamer. I make lists to reflect and I make lists because I want to accomplish some to do's. I cherish life (past, present, future), and as a side effect, I take note of the details. I sometimes catch myself stumbling across a random memory, like the time when my friends and I were stuck in traffic on the way to Yosemite. We finally discovered that the reason for the hold up was a pig escaping a farmer's truck and running down the freeway, with the overalled farmer chasing him close behind. We watched and laughed. I love the randomness of life and those experiences are often filed away somewhere and it's hard to find the drawer, so I jot them down when they surface. I believe all of these pieces make up a map of who we are. Faced with the fact that as we get older memory fades, I thought it would be nice to have a simple place to keep and share these various remembrances, both the good and the bad. Every moment of light and dark is a miracle, Walt Whitman has said.

For the first time in human history, the internet is offering an opportunity for every individual to not only share their lives, but to also leave behind a record for future generations. For me, the website is a place to keep these archives collectively, a beautiful database of our goals, our memories, our favorites, etc. It would have been fascinating to read the listographies written by my grandparents and great grandparents!

I recently made a list of things I don't want to forget about my Grandma Nola. As I sat there thinking of things to list about my grandma, I remembered much about her that might have slipped away from me. In a way, I felt as though I was honoring her and her existence in this small amount of time I took to reflect on knowing her. I realized that some types of lists are just that, a method for honoring.

Listography is also great for practical purposes: grocery lists, movies to see, to do's, etc. When you have a list of things to do staring at you and begging for a strike through, it's encouraging! In the same way I don't want to forget the idiosyncrasies of my grandma, I also don't want to forget to pick up more cereal, learn a new language or see a particular film. I also like using the site as a reference tool; lists like my favorite shops, books I read in 2007, or places to eat in Brooklyn have come in handy. New technology will also make accessing lists a lot easier when you're away from home.

The Book is a great partner to the website. Leaving your listography on the table to share or hiding it away like a diary, reflecting on a list on the subway, or sharing it at a dinner party is easy with a book. To me, the book is a space to take note, reflect, and collect the memories from your life. I am looking forward to the kid's version of listography. I wish I had the lists from my seven year old self scrawled in mine.

List formats are everywhere and helpful, but Listography, for me, is a meditative personal tool and a way to honor what we choose to honor (that's my intention anyway). By creating lists of any kind, we are indeed creating a version of our autobiography and that is special for a nostalgic girl like me. I want to say thank you to Adam who built and continues to build the website, and thank you to Nat who contributed his fun and lighthearted artwork to the books.

--lisa