Thursday, June 2, 2011

Writing Memoir Pieces: Look for an overall theme.

You may recognize this picture from the masthead of sixtyfivewhatnow, my main blog.  It speaks volumes to me about who I am, what I'm doing in that blog.
Pictures you choose will appeal to you for some intrinsic and extrinsic motive. Yes, they will be about where you lived, how you lived, whom you loved, who loved you.

Most importantly, they say something about your perspective, your point of view, your angle of vision in your own life.
Let me illustrate this concept through  the picture above.

The camera is looking at both the water flowing, and the big boulders in the way.
The eye is moving upward, following the movement of the water.
The boulders are part of the passage the person is making through this territory to get to the next stage.
They are not impeding movement, they are to be navigated around or over.
For me, these boulders represent what we  encountered, will  encounter, as we flow like a river to the sea!
The images and the overall metaphor are ancient, classic.

Was your life a garden of delights? A torrent of desire?

Keep an image in mind as you choose pictures and artifacts that tell the story of your life through your experiences, your vision of what you hoped it would be, and how it turned out, and how you survived.

p.s. you don't have to chronicle everything. Choose what is most meaningful to you.

9 comments:

  1. I like your explanation of your blogger header.

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  2. You think of things I wouldn't have.

    Isn't it great?

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  3. Ruth, isn't it wonderful how we learn from each other?

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  4. Very interesting piece about perspective. Your perspective as the "owner" of the photo has a depth and experience that another viewer of the photo simply couldn't have.

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  5. Yes! You arrange the angle of the photo, the depth of field, the details that seem interesting to you. Yes, you are telling a story with every picture you take!

    Notice how we want to gather the family, at a reunion, and want to see them all smiling. We are conscious of the fleeting moment in front of us, and we want to remember how for one moment, we succeeded in being together and happy.

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  6. i watch out for less and less. you are right, the photos say so much. i feel as though i am in great need to go out and shoot soon. today would be wonderful however my children hold me elsewhere. even when i shoot my children, i am there inside the shot with them.

    your shot is very telling. it is calm too. it is calm.

    xo
    erin

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  7. Rosaria,
    I should just stop being surprised by the seeming coincidences that happen in the blogosphere. but they still do.
    Just made your acquaintance recently, and now I find that you're talking about things that are most pertinent to what I've decided to do.
    Memoir-writing, in other words.
    I like what you say.

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