Elvis, Ducks, empty parking lots, and awesome Indian food is my pathetic attempt of summing up a crazy day in Memphis! We started the day off at the Peabody to see the ducks, headed to Beale street, then to Graceland, and ended the evening with incredible Indian food and warm hospitality at Rashina's house. When I look back over the day, I am overwhelmed with things to talk about but I think I am going to focus on Graceland because I find myself coming back to that experience and because it will answer a prompt :)
I got into Graceland. Maybe I got swept away in all the hype but I loved walking through Elvis's house to the tune of various Elvis songs and watching other people holding hands, crying, laughing, and even getting married. When we got together and discussed Graceland, I realized that I had bought into the exact image they were selling. Just like while we all agreed the Ducks at Peabody were anticlimactic, we were still 12 of the 400 people there to see them walk to the fountain. So what draws us to these places? My friend Kate might say FOMS (Fear of Missing something). What would happen if we went to Memphis and didn't see the ducks? If 400 other people are into it, we might be missing some great phenomenon. Graceland was something I'm glad I did once. And I guess that's all it takes for that to be an extremely successful business, for the majority of Americans to hit it up at least once in a lifetime. I guess in all this sleep-deprived rambling is my struggle between thinking sociologically and experiencing something for what it is. It seems silly that a grown man would be weeping over Elvis's grave, or that two people would want to be married for $600 dollars at Elvis's home. And I know there are a million sociological implications to both those scenarios. However, I think there is a balance between learning and analyzing and just being present at a place and taking it in. Overall, though Graceland highlighted for me, our society's strange obsession with celebrities--whether it be Elvis Presley or Lauren Conrad. This both comforts and disturbs me.
The other image of the day that my mind keeps replaying is the little African American boy we saw on Beale Street doing flips for money. I have a blurry picture of a little girl around his age walking up to his jar with her Grandma to tip him. I was hit with the stark contrast of this little boy, on his own trying to make money, compared to the little girl who was handed money and led by hand the 3 feet to the bucket. It just seems representative of how different a life can be based on the situation you were born into. Anyways, once again I apologize for the slightly jumbled nature of this blog but I have to admit that my mind is focused on my bunk which Emily aptly described as so comfortable it was like "crawling back into the womb."
1 comment:
Jenni, I really like what you said near the end about finding a balance between thinking and learning analytically and simply being present in a place to experience it. I find myself constantly trying to find that balance and hopefully we will find that on this trip, so as to gain knowledge from what we see but to also soak in these amazing experiences.
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