Memory Writers Network

by Jerry Waxler

When Doreen Orion’s husband noticed they were getting older, he suggested they buy a recreational vehicle, take a year off from work and drive across the country. She fought the idea at first. (What’s a story without some sort of conflict?) It sounded cramped, and she would only be able to take a hundred pairs of shoes. Eventually she gave in, went on the trip and wrote about it in this delightful memoir, “Queen of the Road.”

When I first started studying memoirs, one question I asked was “Are travel books really memoirs?” It seems like cheating, since the events just took place last year. But upon reflection and further reading, I have discovered that books like this one are lovely containers for musings and sharing of the author’s life experience. So if this is cheating, give me more.

In fact, by understanding how she put her book together, I see the goal of a memoir. It is designed to take you inside a real person’s experience of life. Inside the author’s point of view, we see what they see and how they see it. It’s the closest thing to mind-melding we can get on this planet, and if the author sees interesting things in a fun way, we enjoy the experience. Doreen Orion satisfies these goals fabulously.

As a traveler, she sees interesting stuff. Traveling across country provides endless opportunities for description, so like any memoir writer, she had to select the scenes that will add up to a good read. Her choices tend towards a mix of “famous yet quirky” like the vast Wall Drugstore in South Dakota, a huge mountain-carved statue of Chief Crazy Horse, and that strange place a guy built in Florida in the 1920’s out of chunks of Coral. (see my notes for more about these travel details.)

Her observations inside the bus are just as interesting as what took place outside. She has some great scenes with her husband, while he drives and she sits there with the dog and cats. She keeps it interesting by playing up her fear of crashing, rolling, and smashing when they approach overpass or hit a bump. She portrays her phobias with grace and humor.

Within this mix we are working through Doreen’s midlife crisis. Since I (along with a few million boomers) am recently discovering the weird fact that I keep getting older every day, midlife is a topic that is particularly interesting. Considering that both Doreen and her husband are psychiatrists, she could have applied a lot of analytical fire power, but instead of getting all heavy about it, she just has fun.

So let’s see. It’s a midlife crisis book. A travel book. A memoir. A romantic comedy. An introduction to the RV lifestyle. It even has cats and dogs. This tremendous variety becomes one of its most intriguing stylistic features. And it’s a story. Her scenes add up nicely to give me a picture of the whole trip. She lets me feel the rhythm of their day: sleeping late; socializing with neighbors in the RV camp where everyone is just passing through; unhitching their tow-along Jeep to do some sightseeing; and then back on the road, bouncing along, navigating, and making jokes to pass the time.

And that brings up a valuable lesson for writers. Just as important as the fun things she sees is the fun way she describes them. Her style is engaging and keeps the pages turning, a crucial requirement for any publishable book. I always get in trouble with the literati when I say things like this, but Doreen Orion’s memoir reminds me of Shakespeare’s plays, at least in one regard. To appeal to a mixed audience, Shakespeare laced the dialog with sophisticated innuendos for the intellectuals and gags to keep everyone guffawing. Orion does the same thing in Queen of the Road. She’s funny.

Within this simple premise of a travel book about two people at midlife, there are hidden a number of clever layers that create a wonderful read as well as a wealth of ideas that you might be able to apply to your own memoir. In fact, I find so many aspects of the memoir enjoyable and informative that when I tried writing them all, I ran out of time before I ran out of ideas. In future posts, I’ll have more to say about the many lessons from Doreen Orion’s Queen of the Road.

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Writing Prompt
Write two synopses of your memoir. The outside story will describe events in the world. The inside story will describe emotions, such as fear, hope, and disappointment. Each of these stories should feel like a journey, with a beginning, middle and end.

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Note:
About 20 years ago, I saw a documentary on public television about a guy who had built a sort of artistic compound, out of thousand pound blocks of cut Coral. I was intrigued by the weird fact that no one understood how this man moved this big rocks without any equipment. When I was in Florida, I went to see this strange out-of-the-way tourist attraction myself, and I was delighted to read Doreen Orion’s view of the place. Here is a note I found on the web with a link to the full article.

The Secrets of Coral Castle
Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, is one of the most amazing structures ever built. In terms of accomplishment, it’s been compared to Stonehenge, ancient Greek temples, and even the great pyramids of Egypt. It is amazing - some even say miraculous - because it was quarried, fashioned, transported, and constructed by one man: Edward Leedskalnin, a 5-ft. tall, 100-lb. Latvian immigrant. Working alone, Leedskalnin labored for 20 years - from 1920 to 1940 - to build the home he originally called “Rock Gate Park” in Florida City.

Crazy Horse Statue
During the 1930’s, Chief Henry Standing Bear watched in silence as faces of great white leaders emerged from the ancient granite of Mount Rushmore in his ancestral Sioux homeland: George Washington in 1930, Thomas Jefferson in 1936, Abraham Lincoln in 1937 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1939. Finally, in the fall of 1939, the Sioux leader wrote an appeal to a Connecticut sculptor who had worked on the monument: ”My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too.”

Half a century and eight million tons of rock after the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, acted on that appeal, the defiant eyes of Chief Crazy Horse once again glare across the Black Hills of South Dakota. One year from now, on June 3, 1998, sculptors plan to dedicate an 87-foot-tall version of his fearsome visage, a monument taller than the Great Sphinx of Egypt and higher than the heads of Mount Rushmore, 17 miles away.

 by Jerry Waxler

I went to Philadelphia last week to see a few people sit at a table and chat. The promoters called it a “panel discussion.” To me it was as good as a rock concert. The panelists entertained the audience by sharing themselves, using words instead of musical notes. The occasion was another one of those Boomervision talks I enjoy down at WHYY public television studio. The Boomervision talks are hosted by WHYY and Coming of Age, and were introduced by Coming of Age director Dick Goldberg. This evening’s panel was called “You are what you create.”

I love these gatherings because they are my best opportunity to hear people share their observations about life and growing older. Imam Miller, a Muslim preacher, said that growing older at any age makes most sense when you are growing towards God. Community activist, Irma Gardner-Hammond “preaches” by telling stories. I loved that she has found this method to share wisdom. And professors, Mary and Ken Gergen, also told some fine stories. They publish the Positively Aging newsletter, which reports on the good news about aging.
The riff that impressed me most during the evening was a woman in the audience who stood up and said she had raised 6 kids by herself, because their dad ran off. Now the kids have kids and she has to raise them too, and it never ends, and so how can she be creative under so much pressure. The room grew quiet, and I could feel my heart weighted down with the heaviness of her life. Irma suggested she expand the meaning of creativity to embrace the challenges of surviving under adverse circumstances. Ken Gergen, in a kind voice reached out to her with the music of his mind, and suggested that if she could tell the story of her life, that she might find in it the strength to carry on. His voice awakened echoes of Viktor Frankl’s tune, that finding meaning is what makes life worthwhile.

Before the program the technicians set up their camera equipment. The production assistant, watching the large overhead monitor, said in monotone, “a little to the right.” The panelist’s caring face inched closer to the center of the screen. “A little to the right.” The camera intoned again. When he was satisfied he said, “Set” and shifted his attention to the next panelist. As I sat in the audience watching these arcane workings of the television studio, a man behind me leaned over and asked me who I am and what I do. I squirmed. I’ve never had an easy time talking about myself, but now that I’m researching my memoir, I am far more open up with strangers than I ever have been in my life. His name was RegE, and he asked me where I went to high school, and I told him Central High. He gestured to his wife, Geri. “She went to Girl’s High.” That’s the school that I passed every day on my way to and from the trolley stop at Broad and Olney. She asked me if I was one of the Central High boys who hung around talking to the girls as they came out of school. I blushed, remembering how much of a nerd I was. She might as well have asked me if I wrestled alligators. “No. I worked at my dad’s drugstore.” RegE asked where the drugstore was. I said, “Seventeenth and Tioga,” Now it was Geri’s turn to dime on her husband. She said, “RegE grew up a few blocks from there, at Seventeenth and Erie.” I lived the first year of my life in the apartment above the store, and worked there all through high school. RegE and I had spent some of the crucial years of our lives within a few blocks of each other.

So there I was at WHYY’s Boomervision panel, returning to Philadelphia to understand my own life. In a way, meeting RegE and his wife is as close to coming home as I can get. The city has changed dramatically since I grew up in North Philadelphia, and so have the people with whom I have shared my cabin on this spaceship earth. It’s a vast ever-changing world, and one that makes no sense whatsoever, until we create the stories that bring us all together.

See also a blog entry on a previous Boomervision talk by clicking here.

by Jerry Waxler

I’ve been misplacing my car keys for years, but lately I’ve been noticing a more disturbing problem. I keep forgetting where I put my life. I have to think before I remember where a past event fits into the scheme of time. And I’m not alone. Most people older than, say, 50 have to struggle to remember all their vacations, jobs, homes, kids, hobbies, illnesses, friendships. After decades there is just too much information to keep straight. On the surface, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. Who cares if I forget when I started singing in a choir, or how many times I saw Close Encounters, or if I can only remember glimpses of the summer I spent in Europe during college? Perhaps I ought to just accept a disappearing past. But I think it’s a worse problem than it first appears. So much of who I am is built from the story of how I got here, and losing the story makes me feel like I’m losing me.

I don’t remember when I first noticed my memory was getting tangled, but I do remember being surprised by it. I didn’t see it coming. I never heard my parents or grandparents complain about feeling confused by too many memories. I’ve never seen it pointed out on television, movies, or the hundreds of self-help books I’ve read. It’s an invisible problem, or at least it was until I noticed. Now, I see how hard it is for anyone over 50 to maintain an organized understanding of their journey. The more I think about the problem, the more it makes sense. The past fades because we let it. When I was young, I didn’t ask my parents about the old days. Since they never talked about their past, they forgot it. And the cycle continues. As I grow older, no one asks me about my past, and now I’m forgetting, too.

It looks like post-modern philosophers like Jacques Derrida are right, that our identity is becoming lost in modern times. But unlike other ills, I believe we can fix this one without waiting for a social upheaval or the discovery of some new medication. We can reclaim our lives by writing about them. Writing lets us revitalize our sense of who we are and how we got here. However, few of us have been trained to write our story, and so we may not believe we can take advantage of the benefits of life story writing. But once you get started, you’ll find it’s really not that hard. As soon as you look, you’ll discover memories, piles of them, like the pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle spilled out in a heap. For most of our lives, we’ve picked up a piece of the puzzle, noticed where it fits, and then tossed it back in the pile! Of course we’re confused.

The key is to snap them into place, and you can do that very simply by writing them along a timeline. Writing anything helps you remember it. This is true with phone numbers and to-do lists. And it’s true for your life story. It seems so obvious and yet it’s a revelation for most people. When you line up the events in order, the sequence starts taking shape.

That’s just the skeleton. Now add flesh. As you review your list of events, watch for ones that jump out. Check to be sure you are comfortable going deeper. If so, jump in. While you’re in the scene, look around. Touch a wall or a table, describe hair styles, dreams, fears, or anything else that you experience while inside the scene. Write it all down. What do the characters say? Were they sitting or standing? What do you smell? Through this window, you begin to make more sense of what happened. In fact, it’s almost magical. You not only regain the memory. You go deeper, revealing more now than you knew when you first went through it.

Some people fear that if they delve too deeply into their memories they might get pulled back into the past. But I’ve found the opposite to be true. As I learn to tell my own story, I have become more curious about the people around me. Rather than pushing me into the past, my life story yanks me into the present with a renewed passion to learn the longings, the patterns, and the relationships that transform this sequence of events into the never ending drama of life.

by Jerry Waxler

A lot of people over 50 look down the road and spot what looks suspiciously like a finish line. We pause, ask a few questions and then shop for a sports car, an RV, or an affair. But after we pay for our fling we usually have more questions than when we started. For a more lasting solution, try writing your memoir. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound as glamorous as some of the more expensive responses to midlife but it turns out to be far more satisfying.

By finding the stories of our life we reclaim the adventure, the romance, and the mystery we’ve already lived through. When we put our youthful indiscretions on paper we gain insights not only about who we were then but who we are now. Rediscovering our youth, we see how our actions fit in the grander scheme of things. And we no longer take youth for granted. We savor it. This second look lets us endow youth with wisdom.

To understand how writing might work in your life, consider my mother. Starting from her 70’s, she woke early every morning and for the first hour or two of the day, she wrote. She wrote letters to old friends. She wrote notes about her past. She prepared talks to present to the clubs she belonged to. Occasionally she found a book she thought would interest her peers. The manager in her apartment campus posted a notice that Sylvia Waxler was giving a book review, and people showed up to listen. After staging a few such events, she became known as the book review lady. Strangers and acquaintances stopped her in the lobby to discuss her last review, and tell her about a book they were reading and why she might like it. They showered her with friendliness. She turned out to be one of the best liked 87 year old women I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

But it seems I have digressed. What does an 87 year old lady writing book reviews have to do with someone much younger trying to find a renewed sense of life? I think by writing every day Mom found the fountain of youth. And her audience knew it. They weren’t pouring admiration on her because she gave the best book review they ever heard. As she pried into the meaning of books, and then reached out to an audience to share her ideas, she was creating the story of an old woman who kept going. She wasn’t telling them what to do. She was showing them what one person could do. Her story gave them hope.

It turns out that stories are the only tool we humans have for understanding life’s trajectory. So if you want to enhance your experience of being you, haul your memories out of storage, line them up, and organize them. The mishmash of events falls into place. Armed with this organized view of your life, you begin to appreciate its form. By seeing where you’ve been, you open up to the possibilities of where you are going.

I can’t explain exactly how writing will help you feel better about your life journey, since you will approach it in your own unique way. But here’s how it has worked for me. After writing for a while, I realize I’m in the thick of my own vibrant story. Life becomes more engaging. Now, my curiosity propels me forward, and as I look down the road I see glimpses of the next chapter in this fascinating journey.

by Jerry Waxler

For most of the twentieth century, scientists believed we are stuck with the neurons we were born with. Well, it was actually worse than that. After birth our neurons started dieing, and it was all downhill from there. But then, in one of the great flip-flops of the last 100 years, neurologists now say we can grow neurons at any age. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how. “Use them or lose them” is appropriate not only for muscles. It’s also true for brain cells. So in addition to exercising to my body, I also exercise my brain. By exercising that part of myself, I not only prevent it from dieing. I help it grow. (If you are interested in more information about the science of growing neurons, or “neuroplasticity” check out the blog at the end of this entry.)

Most people find working out boring, preferring to get their physical activity doing something enjoyable, like playing tennis or gardening. Similarly, you can find brain exercises that are fun and productive. If you want an activity that can keep your brain growing and vital, try writing a memoir. Writing about your life, in my opinion, is the mother of all brain exercises. It forces you to search for words, puzzle out phrases, and organize stories. So while you’re writing, you are developing neuronal connections in your frontal cortex. That’s the body part that enables you to plan and think. And while you’re exercising your brain, you are also shaping your ideas about who you are and where you fit in with the world. If you tell a good enough story, you can share it with others. And you might even be able to sell it and add money to the long list of benefits.

When I was in my forties, to gear up for the second half of my life, I started to read self-development literature. One of the best was Stephen Covey’s, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It changed my life by pointing out that while most of my effort went into my employer’s success, I also needed to invest in my own skills and satisfaction. This magnificent concept put me through graduate school where I earned a Master’s degree in counseling when I was 52.

There were a couple of other concepts in Covey’s book that made a difference. One is his suggestion to write out a mission statement of what I want the future to look like. At the time, I was unenthusiastic about writing my values. I thought the exercise was too abstract. But later, when I became interested in memoir writing, I discovered the value of telling the story of life, and I recognized that a mission statement is simply a story that leads towards the future. So my self-help idea of writing memoirs made Covey’s idea of a mission statement more meaningful. Here’s how it works. Write about my life. See that life is a story. Write about the next chapter in the story. A self-help strategy is born.

What does Covey have to do with growing neurons? For one thing, according to neural science, self-improvement develops the brain. Follow good habits and your neurons will grow. But Covey also advocates a more direct approach. His habit called “sharpening the saw” is based on the observation that when you cut wood with a dull blade, your task takes longer. To work more effectively improve the blade. He’s talking about the things we do to take care of our physical and mental health, staying active, staying balanced, building skills. I suggest adding “growing neurons” to the list. What better investment could you make in your own future than daily exercise to maintain your brain? And my favorite exercise, with the most direct effect is to write your memoir.

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For more about the science of brain development at any age check out the blog Brains on Purpose The author of the blog is Stephanie West-Allen, a lawyer who is interested in the way brain science can help reduce conflict. She has teamed up with Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, a leading researcher and author in neuroplasticity. The blog is loaded with references to neuroplasticity, and is a good starting point for learning about the general issues of exercising (and changing!) your brain.

Terrorism! Melting ice caps! Another traffic jam! When is someone going to do something about this mess? While I am waiting for “them” to change the world, “they” are waiting for me. It’s time to break this impasse by taking action. But how? I already tried to bring about world peace by disrupting a campus when I was in college in 1968. It was scary confronting a mob of police, and I don’t believe the world has become more peaceful as a result of those actions. Now that I’m older, I’m looking for better methods. I recently became inspired by a talk hosted by the “Coming of Age” organization in Philadelphia. The main speaker was the CEO of AARP, Bill Novelli, who echoed the sentiment of his book, 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America in which he claimed that I can join an army of new oldsters to help move the world in a positive direction. A week later I went to another Coming of Age event and heard similar ideas eloquently delivered by Marc Freedman, author of Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America.

When I was a kid, I thought that older people were the problem. They seemed so invested in the status quo. Now that I’m one of them, I find old people aren’t so bad after all. In fact, I feel just as passionate about changing the world as when I was 20. While Novelli and Freedman spoke of a variety of ways that others have chosen to pitch in and move their own little corner of the world, I have a grand idea. It seems to me that the missing element in modern civilization is that we don’t seem to be doing a good job of learning from our mistakes. And in my opinion, that’s where the army of us oldsters can help significantly. We’ve seen the world go by for more years than others have, and have gained an appreciation for what matters in the long run, and what fizzles out.

It’s not that I have all the answers. But if there is any wisdom at all to be gained from experience, and my experience tells me there is, then I’d say we need to communicate more of our life story. And we’ve been born at the perfect time. Just as boomers are reaching “that certain age” technology has provided new opportunities for us to collaborate. The printing press brought ideas from individual minds out into the public, broke us free from a layer of oppression, and opened the way for the Renaissance. The internet makes the printing press look like an old relic. We’re ready to take this thing global, and who knows what rebirths we can bring about?

By developing a community of thinking people who talk about life in an inquiring way, we can learn from each other. Your wisdom is contained in your life experience. Share it with the world! Even if you don’t know how writing could change your world, start writing anyway. Your experience turns into stories that are authentic, in a voice that is authentically yours. That’s all that matters now. Find the authentic voice and share the authentic experience. As you go, you’ll discover the sense you’ve made of your past, and then discover the impact your experience has on others. By writing and organizing your story, without even knowing how, you are already beginning to serve. And like any service to others, you’ll be the first to reap the rewards.

Writing about life will give you more energy. Even if you already have plenty of energy, writing will give you more. And if you are too tired to write, writing will wake you up.

Writing will make you more knowledgeable about how to write and how to tell stories. You can press these enhanced skills into service as you discover things you want to share with the world.

By writing about your own life experience, you open up parts of yourself to others. This makes the world a friendlier, more intimate place to live.

Write for a cause, write for a community, write for posterity, write to share yourself. Write to change the world.

 by Jerry Waxler

Many people intend to write more after they retire, because they will have more time. I agree that you will have more time when you are no longer working a day job, but I’m not so sure that it’s free time you need more of. In my experience, more free time does not necessarily lead to more writing. It’s what you do with your free time that matters.

If you look at your free time as time to relax, then more free time will just mean more relaxing. Writing requires a shift in your attitude towards free time, and you can start making that shift right now. The trick is to realize that once you start writing, even if you only last for ten minutes, you will have energy than when you started. Once you develop the habit of creating during your free time, it will stick with you, and carry you towards your goals whether you are working, or after you retire.

When you go to work, you’re on a schedule. Your actions are well-defined, driven by the needs of the business. The people who work together expect each other to do their share. Writing lacks these pressures, and on the surface, this lack of pressure seems glamorous. Be your own boss. Work when you want. But when you actually try to produce readable, or even publishable material, independence loses its glamor.

Now instead of having someone tell you what to do next, you have to tell yourself. There’s no one to sort priorities, give you direction, or warn you of the consequences of slacking off. There are many other things calling for attention: television, the grandkids, or the tennis court. And in the back of your mind, or perhaps right there in plain view, is your belief that free time is down time. “Why should I work in my free time?”

My answer to that question is “Because creativity makes me feel better than anything else I could be doing with my time.” Through experimenting, I’ve found that by writing, I invest energy, but then get back more than I put in. This experimentation has opened a new chapter in my life. I found that by persistently writing, I have nurtured the sort of enthusiasm typically expected only in entrepreneurs or pioneers.

Once you see writing as a contribution to your life, you’ll cherish your free time as a time to create. You’ll find ways to get yourself to the desk. You’ll start habits to help you organize your material. You’ll set goals, even modest ones, that turn your free time into the luxurious glamorous opportunity to create something you can enjoy and share. It’s an awakening, not a retreat.

Start as soon as possible, like after you finish reading this. Take ten minutes and write about the last time you saw your childhood home, or describe your best friend in high school, or list five things you did that pleased your parents, and five things that displeased them. If you feel better, invigorated, satisfied in some sublime way, you have used your free time wisely.

by Jerry Waxler

I drove down to attend a Town Meeting in Philadelphia. The meeting was called “Coming of Age, Ignite the Revolution” for the over 50 crowd. I loved the meeting’s slogan, so appropriate here a few blocks from Independence Hall. Igniting revolution seems the right thing to do, in these times when the status quo seems to be sliding in the wrong direction. I wanted to be reminded that people really do change the world. The meeting was hosted by Philadelphia community organizer Dick Goldberg, a Director of Coming of Age. His guest was the CEO of AARP, Bill Novelli, author of “50+ Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America.”

I found Novelli to be charismatic, speaking with enthusiasm and conviction about how AARP was founded 49 years ago by Ethel Percy Andrus, an individual who wanted to help older people, and at the same time saw them as an army of social activists, using their experience to make the world a better place. He had my attention, because I’m hoping that I can direct my own energy towards changing the world, and looking for ways to join with others to do it. Even in this time when it’s so much easier to meet people online, it was great to be face to face with people who are interested in making the most of life after 50.

The meeting was held at the public television station, WHYY, and was being recorded for televising in the fall. I’ve never been to a televised meeting before, so that was a new experience. And when it came time to ask questions, I walked over to the microphone, an amazing feat for me, considering I would have been too shy to ask a question in public before I went through the Toastmasters program. So I really am getting better as I grow older. Thank God for Toastmasters, and the life long development of new skills.

I said to a room full of strangers, “I just celebrated my 60th birthday last week.” This was funny because in that room being 60 was a credential, and so I was actually bragging about it. I continued, “But when I think about what defines me as a boomer, I donâ’t think about my age now. I think about trying to stop a war in 1967 by sitting in a university building. I’m not interested now in protest, but am interested more than ever in making the world a better place. I came here tonight looking for institutions that can help. I always thought of AARP as an instrument of social self-defense. It sounds like you’re saying that AARP can also be an institution of social development. Is that true?”

In Novelli’s opening remarks he had talked about AARP as such an institution, but he kept coming back to individuals doing it on their own. I want institutions that can pull people together and create change, and wasn’t sure how much he was assigning to me alone, and how much his institution can help people work collectively. At least now I know the intention is there, and want to learn more about how it is helping.

After the meeting I met a couple of people involved in the Center for Intergenerational Learning, based at Temple University, and learned about their programs. Robert Tietze, Executive Director of Experience Corps, a program in which senior volunteers mentor school kids, including a branch at my old elementary school, Pennypacker, in West Oak Lane. And Aviva Perlo, Peer Counseling Coordinator of Intercommunity Action, Inc, a program in which seniors coach other seniors

My original goal was to learn something that I could write about in my blog about memoirs, and I thought the evening was wrapping up a little skimpy in that area. Then a woman asked me what school I had been protesting at in 1967. I told her it was at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She said, “I was there, too.” I studied her face, trying to imagine if I ever saw her pass me on the campus. Every once in while, the wind blows and the veil of time flutters. Forty years ago, 1,000 miles away, I was hoping to change the world, and now, here in Philadelphia is a woman from that same time and place, trying to work towards social change, at Temple Univerity’s Center for Intergenerational Learning. Ahh.. There was the lesson I was looking for. This coincidence reminded me that life is one unified flow. But I don’t need to passively wait for coincidences. I can do it myself. Memoir writing is a form of personal activism, that links together the past and present, and makes the journey of life more whole.

I happen to be reading two memoirs right now written by blacks about their journey through the 60’s. They are George Brummell’s Shades of Darkness, and Tommie Smith’s A Silent Gesture. They are two very different books, and reading them at the same time I can look for things that are different and things that are the same. Reading memoirs is a great way to learn about writing them.

Both of these books are about growing up poor and black in the segregated south. That’s proof that what was incredibly boring and mundane while you were living it as a child can years later become fascinating in your memoir. If the reader has never experienced that side of life, it gives a window into something they didn’t know. If the reader did experience those things, the book can evoke nostalgia, that fascinating emotion that transports us into our own memories. Since I’m not black, reading the history of these two black men during those times informs me of their individual struggles, and the eternal struggle that human beings have always fought against the oppressive confinement of a dominant culture. There is also a degree of nostalgia for me as I am transported back into that great swell of civil rights compassion that filled the boomers’ “first golden years” - the sixties.

The differences I find between the two books are also instructive. George Brummell’s book is written in scenes. You can visualize the events on every page, feeling the Vietnam battle scenes, and then feeling what it’s like to learn how to get around while blind. Like a work of fiction he brings you into the scene, but doesn’t comment on it, letting you walk in his shoes and draw your own conclusions. Tommie Smith’s book is almost the opposite, with relatively few scenes, and a great deal of discussion about what he was thinking and why he did things. The two different styles could help you see for yourself how to build (or not build) suspense and emotional intimacy with your reader.