A rare family photo shows four generations of women in my family. In it, I'm barely one year old, yet the stories I can tell today about this image are endless.
I’m glued. Love your observations from just one photo. My grandparents spoke Yiddish and never taught me because they wanted to forget the old world. I wonder if the same was true for yours with Polish. Thank you for sharing and your thoughtful instructions.
"As many memoirists will attest, it’s sometimes hard to know if we’ve simply locked certain memories away — or worked hard not to store them in the first place." I'm putting this on a Stickie (such a clever app!) and leaving it open on my desktop. I was writing a scene for my memoir yesterday, and halfway through it I realized one of the major elements in my "memory" was just plain wrong. I had kept the core emotion intact but had added details from my imagination, or maybe from some other event. This realization shook me to the point that I started to doubt the accuracy of every scene in my book. But here's the thing - when we're triggered, sensory details may not be accurately perceived or recorded. So when we're recalling the event, we have to make stuff up if we want to write a descriptive scene. This rattles me no end. I want the truth about what happened, and it's not always accessible. Ugh. What the heck made me think it was good idea to write a memoir?
Phyllis, it’s normal to hit those speed bumps when memory fails. And, the beauty of memoir is this: when you don’t recall things, you can (and should) be honest, and you can also reflect on why those memories may have faded. I’m a huge fan of asking questions, too, like, “What would I have said if this scenario played out?” or “How do I wish things might have looked then?” or “What if X happened?”
I’m glued. Love your observations from just one photo. My grandparents spoke Yiddish and never taught me because they wanted to forget the old world. I wonder if the same was true for yours with Polish. Thank you for sharing and your thoughtful instructions.
Thank you, and YES! I’ve heard it said that my family wanted NOT to be known as Polish but rather as American.
Dang. As Americans we are so cut off from other languages already. We have to make the effort on our own.
"As many memoirists will attest, it’s sometimes hard to know if we’ve simply locked certain memories away — or worked hard not to store them in the first place." I'm putting this on a Stickie (such a clever app!) and leaving it open on my desktop. I was writing a scene for my memoir yesterday, and halfway through it I realized one of the major elements in my "memory" was just plain wrong. I had kept the core emotion intact but had added details from my imagination, or maybe from some other event. This realization shook me to the point that I started to doubt the accuracy of every scene in my book. But here's the thing - when we're triggered, sensory details may not be accurately perceived or recorded. So when we're recalling the event, we have to make stuff up if we want to write a descriptive scene. This rattles me no end. I want the truth about what happened, and it's not always accessible. Ugh. What the heck made me think it was good idea to write a memoir?
Phyllis, it’s normal to hit those speed bumps when memory fails. And, the beauty of memoir is this: when you don’t recall things, you can (and should) be honest, and you can also reflect on why those memories may have faded. I’m a huge fan of asking questions, too, like, “What would I have said if this scenario played out?” or “How do I wish things might have looked then?” or “What if X happened?”
How freeing! Thank you <3 I have so much to learn about memoir.