Contemplating Memoir

Lately, I have been contemplating memoir. Simply because I was asked by a family member to help them write theirs. So, I am wondering, now that the idea has been put out there, what that could look like? I write, I tell stories. But how does one tell their own story, how does one tell someone else’s? It feels like a great responsibility. An intense challenge even. To take all that you are and put it into a showcase of words! I think that is what a great memoir is – can be – a showcase of words encompassing a lifetime. As I contemplate it more and more, I think it is a challenge worth taking. There is something powerful in a story. And having the privilege to tell your own story or to even tell someone else’s is an honor. Yes, it can feel like a heavy responsibility, or at least it does to me, and perhaps that is why I should be someone doing it. To truly take the time and care to uphold that honor – an honor for me as a writer, but also honoring the subject of the writing. Of all the things I could write, what would be more important?

I love portraits. I love candid photographs. What could be more akin to my candids and portraits than taking the time to capture an essence through memoir. And it could have the same spirit and purpose behind it – to capture and preserve – to memorialize. Maybe starting with others will make it easy to do this for myself at some point. I have had serious trouble capturing self-portraits – maybe memoir is the better mechanism to hold my truths.

I will continue pondering over this idea – how to utilize my words as a means to memorialize, to build a life’s showcase through words, making verbal portraits. It would be humbling to both receive and give such an honor as this.