Spending time in other people’s company is something rare these days but most of us love being with people and life’s many avenues of joy. Socializing is the feast of the gregarious and we’re all welcome to dine.
Some of us may not be that “phone person,” but put us in a room full of people and, even if we’re on the shy side of the grid, we’re glad to be there. In a small crowd of fun and welcoming people, perhaps we’ll never stop talking. Every encounter is a memory and every memory is a story.
We’ve mentioned before at Chatterbox that, through life, we’re all like balls of cellophane tape that roll around on the tailor’s floor. We pick up everything: fuzz, straight pins and strings. By the time we gain some mileage in life, we’re pretty colorful. We’ve got a bit of everything clinging to us. We’ve got stories for everything, photos of every story, and more of everything without photos.
Everyone’s life is a book. Sadly, not many of us ever write that book about our life or even keep a journal, but all jottings are wonderful ways to pass our family’s history on to those who follow. We may think few or none will really care, but that’s not so.
There’s a scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” where an antiquities collector makes light of how anything can become a valuable treasure if we just “… bury it in the sand for a thousand years ...”
Several years ago, my husband and I attended a funeral service for a distant cousin. One family member brought his grandmother’s journal. It was patchy, but the pages where she entered even the smallest note of her simple daily activity had become gold to her descendants.
She spoke of financial issues, health in the “new world,” untimely deaths, and even her grocery list and budget on the back pages were treasures. Everyone wanted to see it, to spend a moment in her day. We guessed which baby she spoke of and which cousin that could be. It was a box of gourmet treats, though, to her, they were just jottings in an average day.
Family histories get lost in the clutter of doing mundane, ordinary things but, two or three generations later, even a trip to the corner grocer is a moment to share with cousins and will trigger memories to talk about for an hour. It’ll resurrect who the grocer was, who went to which school with his kids, and where his wife came from.
Yes, time makes everything valuable. Throughout our life, we continue iterating and reiterating highlighted moments verbally. Of course, too, every family has that one character who did the really crazy or unique stuff and lived so many lives that every chapter is worth a book: perhaps, serving in a war or the Peace Corps, working against organized crime, helping build some famous bridge or railroad, or having a brush with the rich and famous.
Why not record our own tales or those of the life of our relatives? They’re always good stories. How often do we think, “Someone should be writing this down”? To most of us, becoming the author of an autobiography or even journaling our day may sound boring, repetitive, even vain, but a generation or three later, it’s a treasure and reads as great as the greatest fiction, or better.
There’s a wonderful PBS program on genetics that researches the lives of guest celebrities. It’s a costly gift, one which most of us would love to have. Each story takes many months to complete, with numerous professional researchers working. One young man had his roots traced back to Charlemagne.
We all have a life story and, though we may not be famous or have a connection to royalty, even our grandparents’ journey to and struggle in a new world, or a grocery budget, can make for fascinating reading to our descendants.
Pens up, everybody.
Chatterbyte: As I do annually, I remind all parents sending kids off to college:
Even if you are paying the tuition, if you wish to be privy to your student’s grades for any reason or during the semester, you’ll need a notarized letter signed by your child. Keep one and send one by certified mail to be kept on file in the Office of the Registrar at your student’s college. If you’re interested in learning more, it’s called the FERPA Law and it’s a fascinating read.
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