“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
— Haruki Murakami
I would add a third statement: And they can help guide your future.
I am 56, have spent over 31 years with the same law firm, have raised three children, and am blessed with a second marriage. All of those numbers add up to a lot of memories.
One way to face those memories is to move. In 2018, I moved homes as I became an empty nester. The basement was stuffed like a low-rent Egyptian tomb, holding an unabridged collection of kids’ art projects, report cards, toys, and other ephemera. The move forced me to sort the wheat from the chaff, including (for my children) heart-rending decisions on which stuffed animals to keep and the like. I erred on the side of retention. And I so enjoyed the process.
Memories are constructs. They are not fixed; upon each remembrance, they are remade, details lost and added, narratives altered once recalled through today’s lens. Those items in the basement, though, were memories cast in amber. They reflected a particular when but, more importantly, a particular who. What else offers a view into the mind of a six-year old like her own journal? Each child rages against and rejoices with their parents and siblings publicly and privately but, at the time, the parent only sees the public performance. There in the basement lie the secret thoughts, the fleeting emotions recorded, the victories memorialized. Of course, these are my children, so the memories are dear. But they also have a universality. Everyone’s struggle is unique to them, but all of us struggle in the same way; our own path, in the end, is far more alike to everyone else’s than it is different.
I also recently moved offices. But this wasn’t any normal office move. It was a move into the office of the legend, Ed Pappas. I’d spent many, many years in that office working with Ed. Now, as he (slowly) moved toward retirement, he gave up his office and its nice large windows. I harbor no delusions that I’m an Ed Pappas, but it still gives me goosebumps to be in that space.
That move also required me to revisit memorabilia. When I had moved into my existing office, I did no culling — one drawer’s contents were simply moved into a new one. This time I went through everything. I had my datebooks back to 1993. I had newspaper clippings, funny things that had happened in cases, and lots of memories from past firm events (some which preceded me). Beyond my own career, I looked back briefly at icons like Fred Freeman, Pat Ledwidge, John Scott, and Joe Marshall. The throughline of history seemed to arise out of this hodgepodge of items although this box of stuff perhaps held no value to almost anyone other than me. In that sense, history is both poignant and meaningless.
As Murakami’s quote suggests, some memories haunt and shackle us (although it seems the present mind tends to color most memories toward the positive, even if incrementally). While memories of trauma or all of the lives you might have lived may haunt, they also make poignant how little time you still have to add to your personal cache. In so doing, and with introspection, those memories might help guide a person’s future path, perhaps back to something lost or forgotten, something dear yet neglected. Only in hindsight will you be able to judge the value of these memories, but one truth remains: you won’t have any if you don’t make any.
Alas, my time as Bar president is ending. I have so many more great memories to cherish and draw upon in the future.
I leave you with two thoughts.
First, cherish the present, even if you don’t much feel like it. This includes celebrating victories and commiserating over losses. And it means actively keeping tidbits of memories along the way. If it were not for erring on the side of retention, so many reminders of past people, past wins and losses, and past loves and lives would be lost to nothing other than your memory. Ephemera it may be, but each is a tangible bulwark against your shifting memories and helps transport you to that specific time and place. Besides, when the time is right, you can always toss it. But periodically review these troves. Perhaps they will remind you of a part of your past, present, or future self that deserves some attention, neglected in the bustle of the everyday.
Second, the attention given to professionalism by me and others is not only for all the reasons said aloud but, in part, for the reason less said: we want a richer, more rewarding life than whatever it is we’re doing in a particular brief, hearing, or case. Professionalism, as anachronistic as some believe it to be, is the value proposition for the practice of law: to serve more than yourself, to do more than what expediency demands, to leave this mess a tad better than you found it. When I led law school recruitment for the firm many years ago and was asked what “law firm culture” really means, I would often respond that no one puts their feet on the floor and goes to work for decades just to answer interrogatories. I meant to suggest that while there is the work — and, hopefully, the work matters — being a lawyer is more than that, a career which can reward not only as measured by one’s individual accomplishments but by one’s comrades (in and outside of the firm) and, over many years, the ability to be part of that thread of history. My drawers of memorabilia helped remind me of this, and to pay it forward.
Thanks to so many for your support, inspiration, kindness, forgiveness, and hard work during the past year. Your Bar is in great hands, but there is always room for more. I hope you join in, in some way, small or large, to build your future memories.