I was tagged a while back for a meme, "5 reasons why I blog", by Min. I haven't forgotten, just had other stuff to talk about, I suppose. There may not be five, but this is why I blog:
1) It started out as a "jumping on the bandwagon" thing. It was new and exciting and all my internet friends were doing it.
2) I also started it about the same time that my best friend Leah moved to Germany. I wanted to use it as a way to keep in touch, and that's still pretty much the case, just not with Leah (she stopped reading some time ago). It's pretty much the only way I communicate with my sister these days. It's suprisingly effective, since I blog about things that I wouldn't necessarily bother to bring up during a phone conversation.
3) It's an outlet for my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes the only way I can stop obessing about something is to get it out of my head and onto paper, or in this case, the internet. I am sometimes intentionally vague, because this medium is not private. However, because it is not private, the knowledge that other people know what I want them to know about it helps lift the burden.
4) I'm effectively writing a memoir. It may be boring, it might not have a cohesive theme, and it will never be published, but I hope that someone will care enough about me to want to read it someday. I have only one grandparent left, and I'm seriously considering asking her to fill out something like this memory grabber. My paternal grandmother was a teenager during the Roaring 20s, started a family during the Depression, sent her husband to WWII, and so on. I would have loved to read her memoir. My maternal grandfather was a basketball phenom who dropped out of school and was in a motorcycle gang. I would have loved to know what that was really like. My paternal grandfather died before my parents even met, but he was a doctor in the war and in Muscatine's only hospital. I bet he had really interesting stories. Now they're gone, and things I might have known are lost.
Maybe someday what I write will be interesting, even if it's not now. I try, though. I could do better, especially because I forget my audience, and I mostly write for myself. I want to make #4 more important.
posted by Amanda @ 3:54 PM
2 Antiphon:
I highly encourage the Memory Grabber idea. However, instead of have her "fill it out" sit down with her over coffee (or Whatever). Ask the questions in the book and have a conversation. You will bond with your Grandmother, and she will like the attention and being able to talk with someone.
Another way to do this is just sit down and listen. Sometime my grandmother would just start to "Wool Gathering" and BLAM you are back in 1942. I start writing notes like a Sec on No Doz. I do some of my best work on my family tree at Reunions this way.
If you are really hard core, have you thought about recording her?
I really like that last idea of it being a piece of your life that your children and grandchildren can read about in years to come.
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