The Listography Project

thank you to friends Marc (Her Space Holiday/Matmos remix) and Nyles (n.lannon) for pretty music!



I have been making lists for years --and it escalated when I became a teacher. 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 what I'd want at my last supper. (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. 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 and being in pjs on high anxiety because the little dude is about to fall through the ice. So listing can also point to areas of the brain we forgot about and oddly create a conversation between you and you.

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 get out there and do a few things. I cherish life (past, present, future) and so I like 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 and 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. 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 some simple places to keep these various remembrances, both the good and the bad. Every moment of light and dark is a miracle, as Walt Whitman would say.

For the first time in human history, the internet is offering an opportunity for every individual to not only share their lives with millions, but to also leave behind a record of who they were, and what life was like, 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. I wish I had a listography written by my grandparents and great grandparents. It would have been fascinating!

The Book came to me first. Books are intimate and I love to hold a book in my hands. 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 a lot easier with a book. The illustrations are fun and that blue ribbon bookmark is my favorite.

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 realized 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.

Some folks use the website 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.

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).