On a busy travel day, it’s as Ferris Bueller says: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” But between jam-packed itineraries, bus stations, airport gates, bustling cities, long hikes, and more, it can be hard to find the time to stop and be mindful about your experiences. And even if you’re fully enjoying yourself and being present, remembering everything you did is a whole other beast. High-octane days can leave your memory in the dust, a hazy impression of good times and sunshine.
That’s why a lot of travelers — myself included — practice some form of journaling or note-taking on big trips, whether that’s scrawled notes in a journal, Steps in the Polarsteps app (a personal favorite), or photos in your camera. Yet even this can take a lot of time to sift through and document properly; I often finish filling in my Polarsteps Trips long after I’ve come home. Sometimes, on days that are bursting at the seams, all I can find time for is dashing down a list of activities and places, hoping that it’ll jog my memory later.
So I’ve been wondering: Is there a quick practice that can help cement richer memories of the day when life is coming at you fast?
You know? I think I might’ve found it.
The answer lies in something that was originally intended as a journaling exercise — a way to write when life is too crazy to sit down and fill pages. Introduced in Ash Parsons Story’s essay, “Just Ten Images” (collected in Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life), the practice goes like this:
I think of ten moments, mental pictures, scenes, objects that pop up when I recall the last twenty-four hours, and then I write them down. They range from the mundane to the exceptional—it doesn’t matter. The value doesn’t lie in the image, but in my attention to it.
– Ash Parsons Story, “Just Ten Images” from Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
That’s it! I tried and loved this as a writing exercise, but I realized it would work so well to document fast-moving days of travel, or even to encapsulate a whirlwind trip. Reflecting on your time and choosing ten images forces you to sit with your experiences and coalesce them into rich nuggets of memory that can evoke the past in ten little concentrated punches.
As an example, here are ten images from my recent trip to New Mexico:
- The gas fire pit in my aunt and uncle’s backyard at night, flames flickering orange and yellow while the stars appeared overhead.
- The crunch of gravel beneath my hiking boots, mesquite bushes snagging my pants as I pass.
- Our waiter at a Mexican restaurant on Halloween, dressed as an astronaut, passing out candy to customers—I took a Tootsie roll.
- The chirping of red-winged blackbirds, a large group of them dotting a massive creosote bush.
- The mountains turning purple in the sunset, gold light catching on my dad’s water bottle as he walked the path in front of me.
- Offrendas ringing a village square, families sitting in front of them on folding lawn chairs.
- Running my hand through fine, cold white sand and watching the grains swirl in the wind.
- The rough texture of adobe buildings, their ivory tones folding into the desert landscape.
- Hatch green chile salsa in a small black bowl, refilled many times, a chile piece on the rim threatening to slide off onto the table.
- The wind rustling through the scrubland at night, nothing visible in the blackness beyond the rails of the backyard fence.
Try listing your own ten images next time you’re rushing through a busy travel day or trying to wring more detail from your recollections of a trip. See if this quick exercise helps you stop and look around a little more, so your best days on the road don’t pass you by.
Thank you for exploring with us! Until next time, may the pages and paths ahead of you be great.
