Closeout The Year in 4 Easy Steps – no math involved

by kdwyer | Dec 30, 2021 | General, Uncategorized

This before the New Year, I perform a ritual that helps me prepare to accept what the New Year will bring. I like to reflect and take stock of what just happened. Especially after a crazy year like the one we’ve just been through!

My four step method is an accounting but has nothing to do with math. Math was not my favorite school subject.

Why? Whether this has been one of the hardest or even if it has been a very positive year, this is the time to ask some of the deeper questions to help us step forward with confidence. Looking back helps me let go of the unimportant and move forward.

“No, I haven’t kept a running list of my activity. I simply review my calendar entries. It always surprises me how much I have forgotten!“

Even if you detest those holiday letters….It’s a good idea to assess your life’s journey before you head down the next road.

“Am I headed down the right road?“

Before I click the electronic page to January, or stick a pushpin into a new wall calendar, I do these four easy steps and I know I”m headed down the right road of the new year.

FOUR STEPS

Take Stock of What Happened
- Skim each month of the previous year’s calendar, not significant events
- Note meaningful accomplishments from task lists
- Review journal entries for a sense of prominent themes and where my gratitude has been focused.

Ask These Personal Questions. Note Your Answers.
- What were my biggest challenges?
- How did I handle the unexpected?
- What have I learned?
- Did I reach my most important goals?
- What am I most proud of?
- What am I ready to let go of?
- How will I apply what I learned last year?
- What are my new ideas and goals?

Think about new intentions and jot them down.

Lastly, Post the new intentions to a prominent place that I can see every day.

That’s it! This little practice helps close the door on the old year. See what I’ve achieved and have a peek at what I want to do next.

“WELCOME, NEW YEAR!”

My wish is that your light shines brightly in the coming year!

All the best in love,

Kit

10 Creative Ways to Bring Memories into Splendid Spring!

by kdwyer | Mar 21, 2018 | General

Heading into Spring cleaning with fervor? Here are 10 creative ways to organize favorite treasures and share memories of the previous year or farther.

1) Create a Scene

– Save bits of a special vacation or activity inside a glass jar. Note highlights on paper or use ticket stubs, confetti, shells, sand, or cutouts. At the end of the year, review favorite moments, photograph your scenes, then start a new jar.

2) A work of Art

– Create a bit of art or jewelry using a photo, child’s drawing or another memento. Many sites offer ways to preserve a special moment in time for use in a functional, wearable, or artistic piece. This sibling photo was enlarged and printed on fabric for making a pillow.

3) Make your own home videos or audio recordings

Of the many gifts that can be passed to children and grandchildren, few will be as meaningful or as impactful as the sound of your voice relaying what you feel is important to pass on.

4) Create your Own Site

Create a personal website, YouTube, or SoundCloud site to share photos, video, or audio with only your family or friends.

5) Memory Jars

–Display bits of beloved nature, a bird’s nest, or treasured item in a glass jar or cloche.

6) Create a Shadow-box

– Frame a short story or poem about a meaningful event.

Include memorabilia to honor a loved-one.

Maps can give a sense of place or movement.

7) Write Them Down

Keep a Journal or Notebook.

Insert photos or drawings that describe the story.

8) Use social media

Gather favorite photos and related short stories of your year.

Share them on Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr.

9) Display Old Documents

Family history documents can make an eye-catching wall display, especially against a dark wall. Envelopes and postcards yellowed with age, handwritten vintage letters or cards can be framed or arranged unframed.

Just be sure to use color photocopies rather than the originals.

10) Toys and Games

Find toys and games you played with as a child. Display them and write about your experiences with them.

Tell us: What are your favorite ways to reveal hidden memory treasures?

Need help? Submit Your Comments, below.

Professionals, like me, are available to help you get creative with your legacy stories and items.
Participating in group memoir workshops lets you hear what others are remembering and nurture your own memories.

Waking Up Memories

by kdwyer | Mar 13, 2018 | General

I love metaphors! Like tree buds, our memory-energy is being stored up inside us.

Those Buds Were There All Along

Did you know that the buds you are seeing on deciduous trees in spring were formed during the previous summer, usually in August?

Why? Trees are dormant during the winter. They don’t have the energy to grow those power-balls of life in dormancy. The buds are not very apparent in the fall or throughout the entire winter. Yet, if you look closely, you’ll see these tiny structures even in the dead of winter.

Wake Up!

In the spring, buds swell and wake up! Bud-break is the response to both markedly warmer days after cold winter temperatures and to longer daylight hours.

Seeing the trees and bushes flaunt fragrant flowers and green, glorious leaf-out in spring gives me a sense of hope and awakening from the darkness and bleak colors of winter.

Memory-energy is waiting

We create and carry forward special memories all year long. These are the relationships, thoughts, and moments that keep us strong and resilient.

Like the small buds of fall, our memories are waiting for the right environment to wake up and be celebrated!

Celebrate Memories

So how do we nurture our hidden memories? The most important thing is to let our memories break out of hiding and celebrate them. The key environment is where reminiscing is fun and easy. Sharing them with family and future generations come naturally. Journaling, talking, sending letters and cards, and organizing and taking photos are just some of the ways we can nurture memories.

Tell us: What has helped you wake up family memories and be able to share them? Was it participating in a birthday, or holiday celebration? Something else?

In my next post, I’ll show you 10 Creative Ways to Prepare Memories for coming into Splendid Spring!

Tips for Writing Memories

by kdwyer | Jan 29, 2018 | General, Writing

Start Writing your Memories

In a previous post, I talked about the difference between memoir and biography. Whether you are writing biography or memoir, starting is the most important action to take.

The most important thing is not to wait.

Collect the memories before the rememberers are gone.

Time slips by quickly. As you have probably come to know, the opportunity to capture the details of what you know, or the memories of someone you love, can fall out of reach very easily.

That recipe you’d been meaning to ask about.
All the characters present, or not present, in that family photo.
What your great grandfather did for a living.

You don’t plan to lose them, but away they go.

Decide What Feels Right

I used to think of a memoir as being only in the well-known hand or type-written manuscript, or published book. However, you might try other medium for communicating your story.

Journaling – Writing memoir can enhance your regular journaling practice.

Memory Books – Your favorite memories written for someone in particular; perhaps a child, grandchild or sibling.

Legacy Letters – Addressing things you want those who survive you to know in a formal letter format. This isn’t a legally binding document but can be emotionally powerful and cathartic, nonetheless.

Audio – Audio memoirs are recorded in our own voice with an analog or digital recorder. After discovering an old recording of my parent’s voices after they had passed away, audio quickly became one of my favorite memoir formats.

Poetry – For example, Glenis Redmond teaches students how to write memoir poetry in her Peace Voices class. Glenis believes that reading, hearing, writing, and speaking poetry can be a healing medium.

Video – A powerful yet usually shorter version of telling memories than written forms; can be captured by either amateur or professional videographers.

Photo Exhibitions – photos paired with rich written context telling a personal story about an event, a person, family, or community.

Online database – A curated collection of stories from group members who may or may not have a relationship. Examples of these will be detailed in a future post.

Want to Try Your Hand at Memoir?

I’ve put together some prompts to use as monthly themes.

There are no rules, of course. No one will be grading you. Use any topic that inspires you!

If you’ve never done this before, keeping it simple and short will make it enjoyable.

4 Tips to keep in mind:

Once a month, set aside 30 minutes to write, or 10 minutes to record, your telling about a theme.
Write, or record, or both, until you’ve exhausted the topic.
Don’t be afraid to stray from the prompt. It’s perfectly fine to follow your white rabbit wherever the memory leads you.
Revisit your memoir pages or audio files a few months after you’ve written them. Has your perspective changed?

January – Tackling new challenges: Describe a time when you didn’t back down from something that frightened you.

February – To love and be loved: Describe an item that reminds you of a kindness you gave or was given to you.

March – Winds are blowing: Describe a “windy” time in your life, either figuratively or literally.

April – Showers before flowers: Describe a memory that involves water.

May – Spring dancing: Tell about a time when music affected you.

June – Roses are red: What funny or strong memories relate to a wedding or summer event?

July – Vacation fun: Describe a favorite vacation or travel memory as a child.

August – School days: Describe a memory about a teacher that influenced you.

September – Gifts of gold: What was a favorite present you received or gave?

October – Acting out: Describe a time when you acted as someone or something not yourself

November – The warmth of family: Tell a memory about a family tradition.

December – Light & Hope: What dreams do you have for the next year?

After trying out this exercise…Send me your comments using the box below:

Did you find writing on a theme enjoyable?

What medium(s) did you choose?

How did your perspective change?

Is a Memoir a Biography?

by kdwyer | Jan 9, 2018 | General, Writing

Hello, my story-happy friends!

In writing circles, a memoir, pronounced “Mem-wahr”, is a form of non-fiction writing.

Memoirs are narratives of someone’s personal experience. I rather like the vintage French roots of the word, defined as “something written to be kept in mind”. To me, that something to be “kept in mind” might be a perspective, an insight, an influence, or a way of coping with an event.

For instance, I was searching for memoirs about Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of the site known as Mount Rushmore. Historical facts of who, what, and when, loomed much larger than insights into his personal thoughts and influences. Those were all biographies.

People often mistake memoir with biography

If you wrote down the major plot points of your life, it would be a biography.

In theory, you could construct your biography from the scheduling pages of your calendars and planners over the years.

Like holiday letters from distant friends and relatives, they are quite often statements of places and events.

Example: “I grew up in a middle-class two-parent family. I graduated from a high school in Connecticut, earned an associate degree in Animal Science. I got married twice, had one child, went back to school, achieving a bachelor’s in Biology and started a company.”

That’s a biography. Everything in it is true, and although I summarized entire decades, it covers most of my life up to this point. Anyone could have written the above example for me; I didn’t add any of my own interpretation.

Memoir, on the other hand, includes personal feelings and insights that stayed with the memory of events.

Memoirs are like biographies in that they explore real-life. But, memoirs don’t necessarily span an entire lifetime. They may follow a specific theme or time frame and reveal a deeper exploration of memories.

The writing process often shakes out new insight about a memory. Stories recollected much later from when they originally took place are seen through a more experienced lens, often exposed to new light.

Writing memoir is about finding your emotional truth as much as factual truth.

The manner of truth rests in the eyes of the author. I’m not suggesting you can outright lie in your memoirs, but you can focus on the theme of your life, rather than the plot.

Readers of memoir are tempted to savor the story because it feels as if the writer is revealing what things should be “kept in mind”.

Example: “When I was four years old, we lived near a golf course of rolling green grassy hills. At dusk on the fourth of July, families claimed spots on the hilltops with lawn chairs or blankets to watch the night’s fireworks display. This year, before it got pitch dark, I was allowed to play with the deer statues that decorated the front of the clubhouse. I pet them as if they were real. I talked to them and climbed on them. When the grass turned cold and damp, my mother spread out one of our white cotton bedspreads and dad called for my sister and me to come lay on it with them. We lay our heads all the way back and looked up to watch the show in the sky. The ground shook beneath us when the “m80 – cherry bombs” exploded seemingly right over us, leaving black puffs of smoke floating slowly away. I grabbed my mother’s hand to feel safe but I was giggling with excitement. The smell of gunpowder wafted around us and I soon joined in exclaiming “oohs” and “aahs” with each burst of color and light. When the fireworks ended, I got to ride on my dad’s shoulders during the long walk back to our car. It was just about the best time ever.”

Let’s be honest, I’m probably getting all the details wrong.

I’ve reconstructed this old memory a hundred times over the years. Maybe it wasn’t a golf course. Maybe I wasn’t allowed to climb on the statues, or the bedspread was just an old blanket. Maybe I grabbed my dad’s hand, and not my mom’s. I have no idea.

Does that matter? Not really.

That’s how I remember it for some reason. It isn’t like a video captured on a phone or security camera. My mind thinks of that event as important and it filled in the gaps.

That’s the power of memoir.

Thinking and telling about it can teach us a lot about how we perceive the world. It lets us dive back into memories and come away with a fresh perspective.

How do YOU feel about memoir vs. biography? Do you have some favorites of either type to share?

Stolen Christmas

by kdwyer | Dec 21, 2017 | General

As Christmas Eve approaches, it reminds me that my parents always took my sisters and me to midnight mass when we lived at home. My mom was a devout Catholic, and she loved celebrating with all the rituals, including witnessing the pomp and circumstance of the solemn procession that started the Catholic mass on high holy days.

My dad didn’t frequent church services at all, but he did agree to attend mass with us on Christmas and Easter, to stay in good graces with his beloved wife. The most memorable of these was when I was about ten years old. We lived in Michigan at the time, and it was one very bitter cold Christmas Eve.

Dad parked our car in the church lot with all the other congregates and we went into the great hall of stained glass filled with green pine boughs and candles everywhere. The sights, sounds, and smells are easy to bring to mind. I remember the strong incense puffing from the swaying gold thurible. It made me cough, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone else. So, I swallowed hard and kept as quiet as I could while fixing my eyes on the cross carried atop the high staff by an altar boy donning his white gown while processing to the alter. We sang hymns with the choir and I even caught my dad mouthing a few words of a verse or two, but not loudly. When he started snoring during the sermon, mom jabbed her elbow into his ribs and startled him awake. This made my sister and I giggle, but we were soon scolded to keep quiet.

When the service was over, we walked back across the parking lot behind my dad to the car. I couldn’t tell at first if it was the snow squeaking under our boots or my dad speaking but I soon came to find it was the latter.

My dad had stopped short and gasped, “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” He gazed at the wheels where the hubcaps had been stolen from his brand new Chevy Impala while we were at midnight mass! He couldn’t believe that in this sleepy medium-size town of cornfields, someone found they needed to steal from him on Christmas Eve.

Dad scoffed a lot about it at first. Then mom said to us in a jovial tone that she feared he would never attend church again! Maybe because no one was hurt, or thinking the thieves must have needed those hubcaps more than we did, mom and dad kept the mood light.

Before we could say *Jack Robinson*, dad turned that hubcap incident into a family story that ended up being told over and over for many years. It seemed to give him a great deal of pleasure to laugh at the irony of it. Coming into misfortune while you were trying to do good became the family joke that bore many one-liners: “Watch out dad, someone might steal the whole car next time!” “Dad won’t go to church, but on the one day of the year he does, he gets robbed!” “Is God sending you a message?”

I’m grateful that my dad did not stop taking mom to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. In fact, he continued for as long as I can remember. Easter too. I’m thankful that he felt enough love in his life to keep giving it and allowed good humor to lighten his load.

Do you have a story to share about a holiday that “stole something from you”? Does your family have stories that get told over and over?

My wish for you is that you discover the kind of hope in your stories that lets you know there is enough good in the world to overcome the bad. Merry Christmas everyone!