This one comes from member Ilona Fried, enchantress at Mixed Media Mosaics:
It was my first conference so I tried to go to as many panels as possible—at least 10, on a bunch of subjects. Having gorged at this literary banquet, and on too much candy, while schlepping a 10-lb bag filled with free books, literary journals and doodads (a shot glass! an irresistibly cute bottle of hot sauce!) from the book fair, I was in a bit of a stupor for much of the event and my jottings are incomplete. Next time I will: hire a sherpa, attend fewer panels, "just say no" to the sugar (unless, of
course, it's Simple Sugar Bakery!).I've been taking memoir and personal narrative workshops at Lighthouse since fall 2009 and attended several panels on that theme. Here is a mosaic of selected tidbits from a few of those panels:
FINDING LOST MEMORIES: Vicki Lindner, Emily Fox Gordon, Jana Harris, Ann McCutchan, Steven Schwartz
So, if I remember correctly....and in no particular order....
I was relieved to hear Emily Fox Gordon say that a weak memory is not necessarily a disadvantage for memoirists; like someone testifying before the Senate, one can always claim "plausible deniability." She did lament that the memories she's not looking for, which she termed "idiot memory" tend to find her. "Idiot memories," such as radio and TV jingles from her youth, are accurate but pointless and it's the other memories, the important ones, that can shift how we see ourselves, giving us an "aha" moment, that can be harder to find.
Vicki Lindner, the panel chair, said (among other wonderful things, which I did not write down!) that exposing memories to the right cue—smells, sights, spaces—can release them into our awareness. And, to paraphrase, memories beget other memories.
Steven Schwartz said that memory has a "split personality." The hippocampus remembers facts, and the amygdala stores the emotion. Memories can be recalled into an unstable state—think of ice melting into water—and can be transformed and restored. Memory destined for literary purpose is a hybrid—part fact, part myth. The act of writing itself—being present, having faith, attending to the narrative—can lead to memory.
Ann McCutchan spoke of borrowing other people's memory; she is writing a book about environmental changes in the Atchafalaya Basin and is structuring it around the life story of a native to that region, who in recent years was struck with an illness that affected his ability to accurately recall things. She is being very diligent about double checking dates and places, especially after she herself misremembered the name of a place she had visited more than once.
Jana Harris said something about the "collective unconscious" and I really wish I could remember more....
--Ilona Fried
