Memories of Life Events

Memories of Life Events

At 72 now, I spend a surprising amount of time on memories. As a writer, I wonder how many of these memories I should write down, and in what form. They usually don't fit into the categories in which I am writing, at the time, so they get passed over.

Just now, I was reading Dan Curtis' weekly Monday's Link Roundup, that I get via email, and read carefully each week. The one that caught my eye was Frank Bruni's Memoirs and Memory from the Huntington Post. He is writing about (and promoting) his book tour for his memoir, Born Round.

The point of his article, with many good anecdotes, is to point out how others remember shared events very differently, because of their relation to their own life stories - and each person is so different. I want to share some quotes, from near the end of the article:

"Do I -- do we -- remember only those scenes that fit neatly into the central narrative in which we're most invested, the one that dovetails most cleanly and neatly with the sense of self that we've chosen or that's been imposed on us by the people around us?"

"Do we in fact have other, equally interesting life stories that we're unaware of and unable to tell, simply because their building blocks are the memories that fell by the wayside?"

 And he concludes, "Possibly. And while those memoirs might undermine the ones we've written, they also might just improve on them."

Food for thought? Do your life experiences confirm his impressions of how we each remember common events differently? Mine do. I wonder what I am missing?

I look forward to your comments.