Memory and Wonder
Memory and Wonder:
A Field Guide
Memory and Wonder invites readers to consider the seminal learning moments of their lives. How do you expand those memories to live more fully in the present moment, to deepen awareness, engagement, and joy? Using the venues of play, games, and sports, Thomashow explores childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, surveying the ground that connects memory, imagination, and wonder. He encourages readers to cultivate their own memories as pathways to wonder and learning, using those memories to enrich the aging process. A variety of short essays covers topics including bicycling, birding, swimming, board games, playing cards, basketball, wiffle ball, mazes, marbles, and frisbees, among many others. Thomashow's background in environmental studies, ecology, and education permeates the text, suggesting how moments of play are deeply embedded in place, habitat, weather, and landscape.
What people are saying
“Mitchell Thomashow has the extraordinary ability to find wonder nearly everywhere he looks, in everything he has experienced—in the beauty of seashells, the pleasure of pick-up games, the endless variety of shapes and colors of marbles. His latest book, Memory and Wonder, is a heart-felt call—and field guide—to being open to the life-affirming power of awe and curiosity.”
“Rarely does a book catch the exact alchemy of childhood wonder, landscapes of play and mature ecological wisdom. This book is an invitation to look back at the spheres of imagination we created as children and see them for what they truly were—our very first dialogues with the cosmos. An enchanting masterwork that expands the boundaries of memory itself.”
“One of our pre-eminent environmental thinkers takes a deep dive into the seemingly mundane, everyday topics of memory, wonder, imagination, and play, and connects these universal human attributes with the most profound issues of ecological identity and healthy relationship.”
“In Memory and Wonder Mitchell Thomashow gives us a wonderful gift—a brilliant prism that guides and inspires us to cultivate our fertile field of memories where we can, and should, harvest the very wonder and essence of existence.”
“Mitchell Thomashow’s Memory and Wonder is an absolute delight. This book is not only about the idea of memory and wonder – it also embodies, in the stories that Thomashow shares with us, the ‘importance of memory and wonder in our worlds. Most importantly, by inviting us into his own journeys and experiences of memory, wonder, and play, Thomashow invites readers to explore and wander through their own lives in enriching ways.”
“Mitchell Thomashow writes enormously helpful books about connecting us to the intensity and immensity of the biosphere – jolting our awareness, throwing us a curveball when we expect one down the middle. This time his subject is the joy and wonder he’s gained from a lifetime playing every game you can think of. Once again, he’s a wonderful coach and teammate.”
“Thomashow reminds readers of our power and capacity to unlock connection in our lives by immersing ourselves in noticing and being intentional about the means through which we view the world. ”
“Thomashow teaches us to honor our engaged memories with objects as they became ‘natural archetypes’ for our beings. There is a meditative quality to these essays, in which the importance of contemplation is not of your thoughts sitting in the absence of objects, but of objects of the world in relationship to your personal history and development.”