Seven Treasures, Part 7: guest post by Adrian the Elder
Read the series Introduction here.
Born and raised in Toronto, I left school when I was seventeen and hitchhiked around North America on an unforgettable non-stop three-year odyssey of exploration and discovery. Except for a five-year stint as a personnel manager with a large camera store chain, I’ve worked all my life as a photographer, mostly in my own studio. Twelve years ago, much to my surprise, I met Linda and married for the second time, and a few years after that, closed my studio. I now enjoy life’s unexpected shifts with my retired and also very active wife. I dabble in my basement photography studio and spend a lot of time writing about some of my experiences, which I post on my blog: http://adrian-the-elder.blogspot.com
Please join me and my treasures in the sandbox. I hope you’ll find some of what I have interesting to look at while I tell you what each means to me. You’re welcome to play with them if you like; all I ask is that you take special care with my clay pot, as we have been together for more than forty-six years and it’s far more fragile than I am.
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Thursday, June 14th, 2012
Seven Treasures: a memoir series
Photo credit: Donna at An Enchanted Cottage blog: www.anenchantedcottage.blogspot.com
Links to guest posts in this series appear below.
Memory fascinates me.
Why do people remember, and forget, what they do? What triggers their memories? If they focus on an object that uncovers a memory, using “involuntary memory” as a springboard to ”voluntary memory,” how deep can they go in recalling emotions and details?
What significant personal stories, unique and at the same time universal, can result from this process?
In Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust writes famously about how a squat, plump little cake called a “petite madeleine,” when dipped in tea and tasted, evokes memories of his childhood in Combray. He describes the experience beautifully as it unfolds:
“And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.” (Read more of the quote here.)
In memoir workshops I suggest that those seeking a way into their writing begin by looking around their homes, or cottages, at the belongings they keep close. Aside from basic utility items — that vegetable brush is unlikely to elicit emotions, though you never know! — many of the items we refuse to part with, whether used regularly, hanging on a wall, set out on a dresser, or tucked away in a drawer or cupboard, may be keys to memory. Each has the potential to remind us of the distant or not-so-distant past: a person, a place, an experience.
And if we look closely, each tells us something about who we were, and who we’ve become.
For “Seven Treasures: a memoir series,” I asked writer and editor colleagues, former students, and friends to share something about their most memory-imbued belongings. The results have been a pleasure to read, the writers’ choices and the reasons behind them unique, often surprising and always revealing.
I hope these writings help you see anew some of your own cherished items, and find your way to the underlying stories that make them special to you.
~ Allyson
Click the contributor’s name to read about his or her Seven Treasures:
1. Carin Makuz, blogger and photographer (Matilda Magtree)
2. Rebecca Rosenblum, author and blogger (Rose Coloured)
3. Jeff Kamchor, television producer
4. Tobin Elliott, author of horror fiction (his website), blogger, and writing instructor
5. Amy Mattes, professional skateboarder and writer
6. Susan Johnson Cameron, retired teacher writing a family memoir
7. Adrian the Elder, photographer and blogger (Adrian the Elder)
8. Rick Brazeau, photographer (his photography Facebook page)
9. Elizabeth Yeoman, writer and professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland interested in language, culture, history, and memory
10. Thomas Pals, adjunct English professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan
11. Kristen den Hartog, author of fiction and family memoir (her website), and blogger (Blog of Green Gables)
12. Meghan Latta, artist
13. Diane Schoemperlen, author (her author Facebook page) and artist
14. Frank Soriano, leadership development consultant
15. Catherine Graham, poet (her website)
16. Shivaun Hearne, Toronto-based editor for University of the West Indies Press in Jamaica
17. Morgan Holmes, freelance writer and editor (his website)
18. Suzanne Adam, memoirist
19. Natalie Shahinian, artist and writer
And read this thoughtful related post, “Define Treasure,” by my first contributor, Carin Makuz
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
Writing Memoir: You Are in the Room with Me
by Adrian the Elder, Guest Blogger
I love to record everything I see, and the method I chose for most of my life was photography. It never occurred to me then, not even for a moment, to write anything down.
Why bother doing that when all I had to do was take a photo? No fuss, no bother, just instant memory recall and gratification. As a professional photographer, when you make a shot you know immediately whether it worked or not; it’s either good or it failed. There’s no equivalent of a spell-checker to help you out.
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
