In the 1980s, commercials for Memorex cassette tapes filled the airwaves - “is it real or is it Memorex?” So wide-spread was this ad campaign that it was a slogan known to most living humans of the western world.
When I think about writing a memoir, I think about fidelity to memory. At the same time, I know that memory is fallible. More than that, it’s malleable. Memories are not static entries in a ledger or filebox and retrieved clean and unvarnished. Memories take on a patina of age. They change over time. It’s the story of the big fish, the little fish you caught as a child and as you tell and retell the story, the fish gets bigger and bigger. Photographic proof doesn’t even seem to stop the change of memory.
I once heard it argued that if someone tells the story over and over again and not a detail changes, that it’s a lie. It’s a memorized script rather than a real memory which changes as you grow and change. I’m inclined to believe that.
I wrote about the changing self and memory on Medium some time ago: https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/the-vanishing-author-memoir-and-memory-67833f1db17 Let me know what you think of this article in the comments.
I consider myself as writer, somewhere between a journalist, a fiction writer, and a memoirist. I write mostly creative nonfiction. I use my memory but I know its holes and I know that details change over time or that I get things wrong, ideas that I’ve had in my head for a long time, that with a little digging, I discover can’t be true. So I use as many source materials as I can - historical records, newspaper reports, magazines, emails - lots and lots of emails. I’ve had two great purges in my life in which I’ve burned a lot of documents that I wish I had access to now.
Right now, I’m preparing to move across country again, and I’ve digitized many of my old papers that I’ve been carting around for years. My life is lighter and it feels good to let some things go and know that I can still access those documents if I need to.
I’m not a journal keeper, not a good journal keeper. I’ve kept two vacation journals in my life, both for trips to Hawaii, when I was 11 years old with my brother and 16 years old on a sailing trip with 12 others, mostly teens and young adults. I take many notes, but they’re merely to jog my memory. I used to save them, boxes full. I had written a story idea on a paper plate once, folded it in half and put it in a file folder. The last time I looked for my story ideas folder, it was gone. I’m pretty sure I threw it out in a purge, thinking I’d never get to that folder stuffed full of story ideas, most of which I couldn’t remember. If I remember what the story idea is about from my cryptic notes, I’ll write an electronic note and keep it. But if it doesn’t make any sense, I’ll delete it.
Facts of life remain, but memories change. It all veers into arenas of philosophy or UFO studies. What is truth, exactly? For the memoirist, the truth is out there.
It’s bachin’ and dachin’ week, just me and the Dachshund, with much writing work ahead. Summer is heating up all over, even in the pacific northwest. Atlanta is insufferable, well, I’m suffering through it.
Stay cool and safe out there. For me, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!
Please share this newsletter with your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more possibility I have of attracting an agent for my memoir. Thank you so much for reading.