Nourishment

A friend sent me a link to an interview with Toni Morrison where she offers a critique of the offerings currently found in American popular culture. Her sentiments aptly capture its limitations:

“I really want some meaning. It used to be easy to toss it off. Now it’s harder and harder. You have to navigate just to find something that has nourishment. It’s the absence of nourishment. What do you do in place of nourishment? It’s usually junk. Either it’s junk food or junk clothes or junk ideas.”

Since reading this interview, particularly the above remarks, I have realized that the work of memory serves as a source of nourishment for me. I scan my memory for moments of rich and engaging conversation, carefully planned meals, evidence of deliberate living in order to recall the possibilities of fulfillment. Those memories are what help to convince me that there are other models to supply us with nourishment despite the seemingly pervasive cultural famine of our times.