M is for MEMORY AND MEMOIR: HOW TO FORGET

MEMORY, according to the philosopher Suzanne Langer, should not be thought of as a noun – a storehouse or recording machine – but as a verb,  an activity that makes patterns out of consciousness. And those patterns aren’t always reliable.

So, what do you when you want to write about your own experiences and you can’t be sure that what you remember is true?
Even if events occurred just as you remember them they are likely to be incomplete. Other people who experienced the same thing would have different stories to tell…

You can keep faith with your readers by using phrases like:

Perhaps I thought at the time…
Perhaps my father felt…
It could be…
There may have been…
It is possible that…
I imagine that…
I can picture…

And there’s nothing wrong with starting a sentence with the words: I don’t remember…
Your reader will trust you because you make a clear distinction between what you know to be true and what is conjecture.

The label of Charley Straight’s recording of Forgetful Blues for Paramount, made in 1923. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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