Fragments of
time just keep
emerging
from my brain
like finds from
archaeo-
logical
digs brought to
the surface
for study.
I turn them
over in
my mind’s eye
but they seem
to form no
pattern, no
clues to a
lost dark age.
Fragments of
time just keep
emerging
from my brain
like finds from
archaeo-
logical
digs brought to
the surface
for study.
I turn them
over in
my mind’s eye
but they seem
to form no
pattern, no
clues to a
lost dark age.
Writing a
memoir is
a life’s work.
It has to
be earned
by the lines
of your face,
the wrinkles
of your hands,
the night fears
of your sleep,
the weariness
of your brain,
the failing of
your body,
and finished
just in time.
Sometimes,
when I am
sorting my old
English
postage
stamps,
I wonder if
this one or
that one was
a stamp my
great great
grandfather
might have
used.
Sometimes I
meet someone
from my past
who tells me
something I didn’t
know about
a common friend,
or enemy,
or event,
that completely
alters my
memory of
that person
or history.
Are all of
my memories
fungible?
Once upon a
time I used to
say “Oh, if only
I was twenty
years younger”.
Now, suddenly
it seems, I
have to say
”Oh, if only
I was fifty
years younger.”
Every
family
has closets
packed full of
skeletons,
but some rattle
more loudly
than others
Good time
Bad time
Quick time
Slow time
First time
Last time
Past time
Present.
The secret of
writing a good
autobiography
is to outlive
all of your
contemporaries
When I see an
unusual
familiar name
in the news,
I think, “Oh
that must be
the daughter
(or son) of
someone who
I once knew”.
Turns out,
these days,
it’s usually
a grandchild.
You take photos
to remind
yourself of
good times.
But you can’t
bear to look
at them again
because they
remind you of
good times.