Moving Right Along

When I leave here in a few days, I know I’ll inevitably be asked the wrong question about the two years I spent in the Twin Cities: “What did you do there?”
People always seem to ask this question. I was discussing this with a friend who hypothetically answered, “I worked about 40 hours per week…” It’s not very easy to sum up a couple years of life in one (interesting) five-minute story. Take last night: there was a surprise party for my cousin. I hung out with friends, played some lawn games, and we continued burning a tree stump in my backyard. Pretty boring story, right? Except that it was a great night.
The answer to “What did you do there?” is that I lived a pretty normal life: I worked a job, made some friends, saw a couple baseball games, drank a few drinks, and also spent a lot of time sitting around. Same as everyone else. My time is Minneapolis wasn’t defined by the morning of New Years Day spent at Lake Minnetonka waiting my turn to jump in to 20-degree water. But that’s the story that people want to hear. In fact it’s one of the few stories I can think of where I don’t have to add a “you kind of had to be there.” So many stories are specific to a time or a person. These stories don’t mean as much to someone else.
I have a great story about officiating a friend’s wedding in San Diego, but to understand it, I need to explain how I met Doug and Joyelle while living in Denver. Yet when people ask what I did in Denver, I don’t tell them about Doug and Joyelle, or Joey, or Kevin, or… I tell them about going to Aspen to see Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes get shot out of a cannon during his memorial service. Because it’s boring to try to explain how I made a friend while working in the stock room at the Pottery Barn, and then years later he asked me if I would preside over his wedding.
When someone asks “What did you do there?” I’m sure the question they’re really getting at is: “What was it like there?” That’s the right question. But that’s a complex answer; it’s not easy to explain what an individual or a group of friends mean to a person. As much as a place can set a tone, it’s the people and friends that shape the memories and dictate the stories. Except the real details and the real memories are boring to everyone but the storyteller. It’s a livelier telling to just provide the highlights. Because to get the full picture, well, you kind of had to be there.