Not a memoir

Memoirs are for leaders, notable people.

This has been a hell of a time, for everyone. One for the books. But it’s not the kind of time I was expecting, because I wasn’t expecting to be here. Between the things going on in the world for the past few years, and some health circumstances, and you know, a global pandemic, I was sure (in a pragmatic way) that seeing the other side of 2020 wasn’t a given. Not that more time is ever a given. But I was sanguine about that. I’ve never been one to underdo it. My “bucket list” was emptied a while ago. I make the most of my time. But here I still am,(you too if you’re reading this). Still hangin’ out in the pandemic bunker. But the “interesting times” we’re living in have shifted my mindset. And the loss of a good friend last year did a bit of galvanizing to make me write things I’ve been pondering for years. More curiosity, less pressure at this point somehow. I wrote approximately this on Facebook a few months ago:

Today's dystopian encounters: used mail machine at USPS to send a package. Only pick-up time is tomorrow 5PM. Same for the other boxes there. So add one day at least to everything mailed there now. Also I saw a guy using a cup as a mask. A cup from a jock strap.

Someone saw that and told me it should be the first paragraph of my memoir. I’m almost fifty and haven’t done anything deserving of a memoir. If I was writing one it wouldn’t start that way. I’ve been telling people for years that I don’t want to write a book. People didn’t listen. I have seen some things, and do like to write, and I try to please my friends. So I tried to write a memoir.

I didn’t like it. I’m an essayist. A few months of effort yielded a pack of disjointed stories, not a book. I’ll leave the books to people who are good at that sort of thing. And I don’t really want to write a memoir, which is a thing you write about yourself. I’m an only child, so I’m obviously not totally averse to being the center of attention. But it’s also important to have real content, and the bulk of what I’ve experienced in life have been relationships with other people. I want to write about other people, ones I know or have known. People I think you should know too.

So not a memoir. Just experiences I’ve had with people who do things. I think they’re the sorts of people we should have memoirs about. Maybe instead of the people we so often do have memoirs about. Most of these folks have been quiet, unknown outside of their circles (with rare exceptions), people you wouldn’t find on a NYT bestseller list if someone did write books about them. I might exaggerate a bit to make stories flow, to blur key details for folks who might not want publicity, to illustrate a characteristic of Competence into bright clarity, or to avoid a defamation suit (truth may be a defense, but you don’t want to be on the wrong side of most of my friends). But I’ll be telling you real things about people worth knowing. So welcome to my life, and the people who have made it awesome so far.