Coloring Your Memories

When is the last time you sat down with a box of crayons and drew a picture? If you’re like me, it’s been awhile. My last post was about the budget information I found. In the same folder I found a crayon drawing I made five or six years ago of the backyard I played in as a preschooler. I decided to scan it in and write about it now. The picture wasn’t that vivid when I drew it. The scanner magically intensified the colors, much to my liking.


I had an absolute blast drawing that picture. I drew the willow tree with me in my swing. I drew the chicken house in the back, and put my sandbox under the tree. The sidewalk where I learned to skate is on the right, with the fence covered in honeysuckle. The clothesline is behind the fence to the right, and the mysterious storage room I was never allowed to explore is in the top right corner.

When I drew the picture, I relied on my memory. Since that time, I’ve found old photos that showed me some errors in my memory. My sandbox was not behind the tree, it was in front, to the left of the swing. With the help of the photos, I now remember that correctly. The willow tree still had all four trunks. I can’t account for the fact that even now, even after my father told me he’d never cut anything off that tree, in my memory the tree had two stumps where the third and fourth trunks were.

Whatever the realities of the “real” yard and tree, I had fun drawing the picture. I felt like a kid again, just drawing without any concern about creating a polished work of art. Actually, I intended it to look like a child’s drawing, as indeed it does. (I haven’t progressed beyond that stage — I did not inherit my mother’s artistic talent in this respect.) I love the result, and may frame a print of the scan, with all the vivid glorious color.

I strongly encourage you to buy a box of crayons if you don’t already own one, and take a coloring break. Draw like a child, with vigor and abandon. Draw something from memory and see what you come up with. When you come up with something you like, try scanning it like I did, and see if your scanner works magic with the colors.

If your picture doesn’t fit with a story you already wrote, write one to go with it. Pictures like this will add lots of life to your final volume.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Household Expenditures in 1972

This morning I came across a few long forgotten scraps of paper that hold a meticulous record of my household spending back in 1972. It isn’t my nature to keep such close track of things, but for reasons I’ve forgotten, I wrote it all down for three months and never tossed it out. Today I’m so glad I kept this snippet of data. How amazing to see what inflation has done, in black and white.

In July, 1972, our three children had just turned six, four and one. I spent a total of $127.73 that month. Of that sum, $112.95, was spent on groceries. Between weekly shopping trips I made frequent stops at various grocery stores to pick up single items, generally spending less than a dollar.

Other expenditure included $2.95 for scotch tape and sneakers for the baby, $2.95 for a photo album, jelly beans and potato roasting nails, $2.29 for a bottle of wine, $2.50 for a haircut (discount salons had not yet been invented), and $.63 for a birthday card at the Hallmark store. I generally wrote a check once a week at the grocery store, adding a little extra to have cash during the week. Only rarely did I whip out my new BankAmeriCard.

In writing a story to go along with this accounting, I’ll include observations about my attitudes toward spending in general, how we managed the household finances, and how our spending habits have evolved over the interim.

My children will be astonished to see what things cost back then, and in another twenty years when my grandchildren are paying their own way, they’ll find it even more interesting. Ten years ago I stunned our son’s grad school friends at a party in Boston by telling them how from 1963 until 1966, we had lived in “the best $85 per month apartment in Boston” and how I’d fed the two of us, ridden the trolley down Commonwealth Ave. to Boston U, and bought an occasional new pen on a rigid budget of $15 per week. At that point the $85 apartment would have been renting for almost ten times that much, and just the trolley ride would cost nearly $15 per week.

How about you? Do you have old financial records you could use to document your past? If not, you can find general price information on the Internet. Two sites I quickly found by searching for “historic food prices” include the Historical Text Archive and The Food Timeline. You can find other data this way. Please post links as a comment if you know of any good ones.

Tell your descendants how finances have changed through the years. You could also include prices of stocks and bonds, interest rates, housing costs, and gasoline prices, your wages, and so forth. They’ll be glad to know!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Happy Birth Day to Marley

Today is a red letter day for me. We are welcoming little Marley, who was born this morning. She is our fifth grandchild and the third girl. It’s not just every day that a new grandchild arrives, and each time it happens is a very special day.

It’s way too soon to write a story about Marley’s birth, but later I will. I did write the story of the arrival of our first grandchild, who is now almost a teenager, but I’ve fallen down on the job with the other two “older” ones. This is my wakeup call that I need to get to that, and soon. I read Keith his story a couple of years ago, and he was delighted.

My stories about births include much more than the usual vital statistics. I write a description of our anticipation, my delight when we heard they were safely “out here,” and my joy when I first saw and held them. I might include a few details about the wonder of seeing that Stephanie’s fingernails were shaped like mine, and such things. This is a very personal story, a sort of love letter from me to them.

Now, I need to get busy and write the full story of Stephanie’s fingernails, and about Tosh, Marley’s older brother. Sarah’s story can wait, at least until she master’s English. She communicates with passionate intensity, but at this point we still need a translator.

Birth stories don’t need to be limited to grandchildren. I wrote one for our daughter, and for my brother. That leaves a few more to go.

What about you? Have you written any birth stories?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

The Center For Lifestory Writing

Every now and then I come across a website about lifestory writing that’s worth mentioning. Today is one of those days. I just came across the site for The Center for Lifestory Writing, sponsored as a ministry by College Church of the Nazarene.

The site includes a long list of enjoyable stories (no, I haven’t read all of them yet, but the several I did read were delightful) as well as links to lifestory writing ideas and a monthly column on writing tips by Lea Marvin. This month’s column is both hilarious and write-to-the- point. I urge you to read it!

While you’re there, read some stories. You’re sure to get some great ideas for tales of your own, and it’s always interesting to read stories written by “regular people,” rather than the super polished ones in books on library shelves. There’s also a link with guidelines for submitting stories.

If you know of another site about lifestory writing that you’ve found interesting and helpful, please post the link as a Comment below. I’m adding the Center site as a permanent link in the blog sidebar, and I’d be happy to add others, as long as they give actual advice or post stories, and aren’t primarily commercials for products and services.

The latter qualification is based on the fact that my mission in this blog is to offer ideas and tips on lifestory writing in general, as a gift to the world at large. My hope is to inspire and empower you to write your own stories with your own memories, fingers and pens.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Do You Remember These?

It must be the season for memory triggers. Last night I wrote about having my own memory triggered by coming across the old fashioned key chain that reminded me of hopscotch.

This morning I found a link in my e-mail to Do You Remember These? a website featuring an old-time song by that name sung by The Statler Brothers. Do you remember that? The e-mail isn’t new. It’s been around for ages and quite likely you’ve already seen it, but the site is fun, the music great, and you probably will remember at least most of these. Click on over and see if any stories come to mind for you.

Memory triggers are everywhere. It’s a good idea to write them down on your story idea list when they come to mind so you won’t forget them, and to help you find things to write about when you are feeling stuck.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Hopscotch and Other Games

This afternoon I picked up an item from my junk drawer and noticed that it sports a metal bead chain with a clasp that holds the two end beads together. When I was young, these bead chains were used as key chains, and they were prized as hopscotch markers. I considered the chain for a minute, wondering if I should save it for one or the other of my younger granddaughters to use when she is old enough to play hopscotch in a few years.

Do girls today still play hopscotch? I wondered, thinking back to the endless hours I used to spend drawing hopscotch grids on sidewalks with whatever chalk I could find. I drew them at home to practice. I drew them at school during recess and before class for competitive play with friends.

Curious about the state of things today, I checked the web and found several links to sites, like Streetplay Rulesheets, that explain the rules. In my day we drew a grid like the one in the picture here. There are many ways to draw them, as you’ll find with a quick search.

Quite surprisingly, from Wikipedia I learned that the game was originated by the Romans for soldiers, to improve their footwork. Maybe if boys today knew that, they’d be more likely to play!

Several of the websites I visited on this quest have rules for other games like Kick the Can, Red Rover, Simon Says, and so forth. What games did you play as a youngster, at school and in the neighborhood? Who did you play them with? Were you especially good at them? Have you taught any to your children or grandchildren?

If you want to share some of your old favorites but don’t quite remember how they went, do a web search, or go to the children’s room at your local library and ask the librarian to help you find a book with the rules. They’ll surely be there, along with pictures and diagrams.

Now, maybe I’ll call my older granddaughter and ask her about hopscotch. If she and her friends play this game, I might mail her the chain, and maybe I’ll put a couple of metal washers on it to give it more weight and heft. I used to be quite good at making markers that always landed on target.

Maybe I’ll also write a story or two about those games we used to play, and include the rules in the stories. Who knows? They might be a welcome diversion from Game Stations in another few years.

Have fun, and write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Moving Beyond Senseless Writing

Before I left on our recent trip I bought a new spiral notebook for the specific purpose of keeping a trip journal so I’d have the details for writing stories later. I managed to write a few lines about each port of call, but didn’t find the experience satisfying. I finally identified the root of the problem. I was writing about the easy stuff, which was mostly a list of things we saw and the status of the yet-to-be diagnosed minor knee injury I sustained as I was walking down the pier at our first port of call. I was writing “senselessly, leaving out my thoughts and reactions.

My failure to write about these perceptions was based on the fact that even though I’ve made strides in expanding my description skills, it still doesn’t come naturally. Much of the experience of being in these exotic places was pure sensation —rich wall colors, pungent fragrances, odd shapes pr exotic sounds. I also felt joy at seeing old edifices newly renovated and freshly painted, indicating prosperity and progress for formerly oppressed people and gratitude for the opportunity to be there. Joy, gratitude — how do you write about these sensory things?

Some people turn spontaneously to poetry for such expression. I envy people who are able to easily do this. It is not my gift. I’ll stick to narrative writing, but I’ll have to ponder the best way to go about it for awhile, chewing that mental cud I mentioned in my previous post. When I do write of these experiences, it will most likely be in the form of essays, not stories as such. When I do write about these experiences, I’ll draw upon the insights in an earlier post, Transcending the Trite.

Perhaps this is a good time to point out the difference between essays and stories. Stories involve action and/or interaction. Something happens. Stories have a plot. Essays are expressions of thoughts, ideas and insights. They may include a certain amount of action, but plot isn’t a critical element. Essays interject meaning into experiences. Both of these writing forms have a place in lifestory writing.

My conclusion is that for future trips I’ll take a tiny notebook that fits in a pocket where I can record thought fragments of a few words, tossing aside the idea of writing coherent narrative. I’ll also take along the small digital audio recorder I bought a few years ago with the intention of recording relatives telling stories. That hasn’t worked well, but I think it will work well for the purpose of describing smells, colors, and such sensory data.

Have you faced similar challenges when writing about sensory rich experiences from the past or the present? Let’s all give ourselves permission to move beyond senseless writing. Let’s scribble and write some thoughts that aren’t polished prose. Perhaps we’ll never share the result, but we’ll become more versatile writers for the trying. Let me know how it goes for you.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

It's Good To Be Back

It’s good to be back! The extended space between posts here has accommodated nearly a month of new adventures. My husband and I flew out of JFK International, heading for Heathrow, on August 10, the day the news broke about the latest terrorism threat. Fortunately we were booked on Aer Lingus, which meant changing planes and entering the UK in Dublin, so we had none of the harrowing problems our friends flying directly into Heathrow from the USA experienced.

After a day of jetlag recovery in London, we proceeded to Dover and boarded the Celebrity Constellation for a two-week cruise around the Baltic, visiting Klaipeda, Lithuania; Helsinki, Finland; St. Petersburg, Russia; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm, Sweden; Rostok, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark and Oslo, Norway. Just remembering the list makes my head swim!

As soon as we docked in Dover, we made a beeline for the bus back to London, then transferred to the metro line out to Heathrow for a flight to Shannon, Ireland, scrambling to make the tight transfer window. We then spent ten idyllic days exploring the Emerald Isle.

The result was a pair of vacations that were virtually the opposite of each other. The cruise was highly structured, luxurious, fast-paced, city oriented, and shared with friends. The Irish Adventure was planned on the fly. We knew only that we would concentrate our time in the southwest sector, experiencing it deeply, and that we did. We stayed in each place until we were ready to leave, hiked and explored ancient ruins and found our next B&B at the end of each day. Driving on Wild Irish Roads was an adventure in itself, and although we met dozens of delightful strangers, we were on our own for this part.

On the next-to-last day in Ireland, we visited the Bunratty Castle and Folk Center, and the sight of a huge five-prong red deer stag implacably in a pasture chewing his cud as he lay peacefully in a pasture blew me away. Now I think of that stag, and realize that I’ll be doing something similar with my trip memories. It’s the mental chewing and mulling that gives them shape, form and meaning and prepares them for sharing in a meaningful way.

There are many possible ways to write about the trip. We plan to set up a site (or maybe two) to share pictures and comments about them with family and friends. I’ll post a link to that when it happens. Eventually it will find its way into one or more personal lifestories. For this blog I’ll confine posts to insights about writing that occur to me as I reflect back, including only those trip details that are relevant as illustrations.

Again, it’s great to be home, back to blogging, writing and all the great things that everyday life brings along.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal