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An unexpected yet interesting portion of the Knight reunion was meeting a couple of Fellows who were yet to go through the fellowship year. One of them, Krissy Clark, talked to the group about her upcoming project regarding "geomapping." It's basically linking information about places so you can get not only the factual information about a locale, but personal histories and insights as well. I love the idea of tying in the emotional and human ties to a place; usually we're so caught up in the statistics that we forget a place has a life partly because of the lives around it.

The concept reminded me of a reading I heard by Jorie Graham where she discussed her obsession with imagining a literal timeline of a place. That when she sits in one given spot, she tries to imagine what happened in that exact spot five minutes ago. Or five years, or 50 years, or 500 years or even 5,000 years ago. As I sit on my couch writing this I think about gold miners and loggers, Native Americans, Spaniards and even bears and salmon that may have existed in this very spot. Journalists are very concerned with storytelling. The milestones of our lives are often richer stories because of the unusual links we attach to them. I like thinking about those attachments through voice or time. I like thinking that a journalist would remember this, too.

Good luck, Krissy-I'm excited to see how your project rounds out!