Old Friends and New -- People Come to Life
“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
Today opened up when Jon and I granted ourselves a little breathing room.
Jon needed time to sort through old memories and collect his thoughts; he’s the main speaker for his Alcoholics Anonymous group this evening. And I wanted time to sort and collect items for a simple birthday party-to-go; we’re making new memories tomorrow, as we gather family at my mother-in-law’s to celebrate her 75th.
Memories are life, are they not? So I wonder what happens to memories that are lost — these pieces of life — do they get lost in our minds like a set of lost keys? Or are memories like keys themselves, in that they unlock truth about our own lives? And what happens to memories that are never recovered — do we lose important pieces of ourselves?
I lost memories with Mom’s death. The memories Mom kept of me before I could form my own are dead with Mom. Gone too are half of the memories we made together. It is the latter that has proved the more noticeable loss, since I’m now left to carry around half-memories like a sock that’s lost its mate. Like any lost sock, the half-memory is no longer aired in public.
Personal stories are sacred. It doesn’t matter whether the story is told in an AA meeting or in a spiritual direction session or in a cozy chat with a friend or in writing memoir — or even a piece of fiction that reads like memoir. I lose myself in other people’s stories. And because truth is truth, I also find part of my own story within another’s.
Personal stories need to be told and they need to be heard. And with a little more breathing room, we could memory keep a whole lot better.
an everyday life 
I’ve been thinking lately that what we best think of as our history is created when we archive it in our minds as story. The internal narrative in words, putting events, sights,sounds, smells into rememberable words is what creates history. Perhaps those who diary or journal are best placed to remember best as they have the habit of translating experiences into narrative.
*goes off thinking*
Viv,
Memory keepers do preserve history in story, whether or not it’s their primary intention.
I picked up an early 20th century piece of fiction the day I wrote this post — the kind that reminds me of memoir– and I’ve learned it preserves the way of life of an upper-class Victorian woman — over a hundred years ago. An unintended result I’m sure.
I ended up putting this book down — because my eye fell on another title that I couldn’t resist that day — “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”. It’s been a page-turner.
Did your novel grow out of keeping history in journals?
Janell
Hmmm.
No, not at all. I don’t tend to keep a regular journal; too undisciplined and disordered to do anything regularly but the obivous!!!
I’ve written novels most of my life, partly as a way of creating a world I could feel comfortable with and partly as a way of exploring the things and ideas I can never go near in real life. I tell myself stories, inventing wildly about what I see around me and hear.
The starting point for most novels comes when my unconscious throws up a very vivid sequence of story in the form of a dream that won’t let go when I wake. It’s then that all the personal history and experiences are transformed into something utterly different from their origins.
My mother has begun to have memory issues, that worry both my father and me, and I do wonder whether I should now try to rediscipline myself to write at least a weekly diary entry so that I have fixed points to anchor my own memory to so I can check and recheck “facts”.
funny how I’d been thinking about this very thing too and considering writing a post about time and memory travels…
Viv,
Often my comments to another blog post will lead to posts of my own. We leap off one blog onto our own – – or out of a dream into a novel. Thanks for sharing your writing story.
As for a weekly journal note about your Mom, I can only say that I’ve found the practice helpful with my father’s life. The posts are not weekly, but they are regular. I’ve consulted them over and over.
Janell