The way we tell stories of our lives can shape our memories
22.05.2022 - 16:41
/ msn.com
Stories for Life trains “life biographers” to record the memories of people in hospices, palliative care and residential homes: “We believe everyone has a story to tell and a legacy to leave behind. ” Suddenly, ordinary lives are of note. The impulse to document our lives is not new.
The impulse to record a life in flashes and notes, a liquid diary that drips across social media and puddles on shelves in an Ikea frame, has ancient roots. Even when we’re not publishing them we’re doing it, telling our stories in pubs, in our heads, in our updates about lunch. The difference today seems to be the growing realisation that narrative is important.
A beginning, a middle and then, an end. I watched Barbara Windsor’s 1992 episode of This Is Your Life the other day on YouTube – “Darling, you can’t do my life,” she shrieked gorgeously upon being presented with the big red book on stage. “It’s too naughty!” They didn’t show the naughty bits; it was filtered of pulp and scandal.
Watching the show from the distance of 20 years I remembered the cosiness of the format, but also how very odd it was – a celebrity would witness their eulogy, and the show would end not with their death but with the book closing mid-story, beside a lineup of famous friends in formal skirt suits, and someone doing a dance, and Paul Daniels glistening. We have read enough celebrity memoirs now to understand the value of good editingWe have read enough celebrity memoirs now to understand the value of good editing, and can see how even the tale of the most accomplished person can read like sound and fury, signifying nothing. Every day our phone’s photo app spits memories at us – a baby with an ice-cream, a plate of spaghetti, the day we met a horse – but
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