Look What I Found

 

The daffodils and crocuses are blooming! With spring officially just around the corner, I'd like to say the weather is great. But you know spring - can't make up its mind. Lately, it's been cold, snowy, and rainy, or what I like to call yucky. Anyway, flowers are here, with more coming. Yay!

In other news, I've been absent here for a while for no good reason other than I've been working on other things. I have mentioned several times my year-long project of writing some of my life stories for Storyworth. Well, yesterday, I declared it done and ordered my book. And not a minute too soon. I am ready to move on to something else. However, I'm kind of proud that I stuck with it. I ended up with 59 stories and almost 300 pages. Granted, there's a lot of white space in the book, but still...

Hopefully, I'll be back here more regularly, but now it's off to see if I can do something about this headache before I'm off to work.

Until next time...

Memories

 One of my recent StoryWorth prompts was, "What Were Birthdays Like When You Were A Child?" For the prompt, I wrote about birthday traditions from my childhood and how they varied as I got older. Then I sent a draft to my sisters, complete with a picture from my 6th birthday party. I often send drafts of the prompts to them to get comments about what they remember and sometimes to clarify things. This usually leads to interesting discussions and reminiscing.

After reviewing what I had sent, my oldest sister commented that the picture was not from my 6th birthday but more like my 4th. She is six years older than I am, so she often has clearer memories of things than I do from the early years. However, I told her that I remember this birthday very clearly because that was when I got a Bible with my name on it, and Mother didn't give us Bibles until we could read. I was not reading at four. Then another sister chimed in and said that four made sense to her. I was starting to get irritated because they didn't agree with me. This was not a fuzzy memory as some things were. It was very clear to me. I responded and said the picture was labeled on the back in Mother's handwriting, and it said, "June's 6th birthday." The oldest sister said that wasn't right if you looked at the clues in the picture's background; it looked like we hadn't lived in this particular house for very long because of the sparseness of furniture. I couldn't believe that she was persisting with her line of thinking after all I said. 

The next thing I did was get the picture out to scan the back of it and send proof that I was right. And you know what I found? I found it was my handwriting on the back of the picture, not my mother's. When I looked at the picture more carefully, and one of my 5th birthday, I had to agree that it was when I turned four that I got the Bible. 

How could I be so sure but be so wrong? I had a clear mental image of my mother's labeling on the back, and I thought I remembered the event so well. This points out that our memories are just memories, not necessarily an accurate depiction of what really happened. In this case, I think what I had done was combine my "memories" with labels from other pictures. And over the years, I reinforced my confusion until I was sure of the "facts."

There have been many studies about the accuracy of memories, and they have concluded that there can be problems. In general, the more sensory clues associated with the memory, the more likely it is to be accurate. However, a person can totally believe what they "remember" is true. Not necessarily that they were lying when facts prove them wrong. What does all of this mean? Well, not much in my case. Whether I was four or six when I got my Bible is of no consequence. But in serious issues such as trials or hearings, the complexity of memories should be considered.

V is for Very Pleased

For Christmas, my sister-in-law got me a subscription to Storyworth, a service that records people's stories. They send me a question each week to write about some aspect of my life, both past and present. Then after a year of questions, they will publish them in a book. 

I am very pleased that I have been able to keep up with the questions, even though answering them can be time-consuming. I try to be thorough, including as many names, dates, and addresses as I can figure out, and while collecting this data is interesting, it takes time.

It's been a struggle to do a daily A-Z blog post and work on the Storyworth queries. Some people love to write, need to write. That's not me. Writing is something I do to form connections with others and record memories. All that means is that I am very proud of myself for my writing efforts thus far because, given a choice, I would usually choose to do something else (like work in the yard, read a book, watch reruns, etc.).

Below are the questions I've answered so far for Storyworth. There are some interesting ones here that might open conversations with others who you want to learn more about.

What was your Mom like when you were a child?

What Was It Like When You Went from High School to College?

How did you get your first job?

What were your grandparents like?

Where did you go on vacations as a child?

How did you choose your major in college?

How did you learn to ride a bicycle?

What have you changed your mind about over the years?

What stories have you been told about yourself as a baby?

Tell me about an adventure you've been on.

What is the best job you've ever had?

Did you ever move as a child? What was that experience like?

Did you have a car in high school?

Did you have any nicknames as a child? How did you feel about them?

Have you ever had a "supernatural" experience or an experience you couldn't explain?

Next up:

What is one of your favorite trips that you've taken? What made it great?