Taking Ownership
“Memoir writing lays one bare to the world. When you write about parts of your life, you reveal stretches of road that led you to the person you are now.”
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When life hands you watershed moments, in my mind it’s a sin not to to write about them. Such was the tale of my 19th year of life, when my parents plopped me onto an ocean liner in New York Harbor, waved to the wrong ship from a nearby hotel room as it inched out of its berth, and sent me on a year-long adventure to a college year in Athens, Greece.
While the voyage happened in 1970, the words did not hit a computer screen until 40 years later. Still, the detail with which my mind recaptured that “minute” of my life was fresh as a daisy, laden with unforgettable moments and now steeped in a writer’s sensibilities and storytelling passions.
Fast forward to now — a full 50+ years later — and here I am; an audiobook narrator, reading other people’s words with a joy that consistently evokes smiles on my face, whether it’s a comforting or encouraging self-help book or a deep, dark fantasy, complete with characters, foreign accents, blood, and swash.
My tiny memoir, having resided as an eBook on Amazon but never having received the marketing attention or the narrated version it deserved, was still there waiting for me. And it was time. I knew NO one else could bring back the emotion, the growing pains, and the cast of characters of that year except for me.
So one day I pulled up my sound booth chair to my laptop-on-a-pedestal, edited the original version to include the proper first names of all I had written about (many of whom are now gone), pulled my microphone toward me, and — presto! I began telling my own story with a love of all that is holy.
As I narrated, troubling thoughts invaded my head. Would the people depicted in my memoir be bothered by my characterizations? Well, okay — chances were good they wouldn’t even buy the Audible version anyway. At my age, some were already gone. The rest, I hoped against hope, would understand that my impressions of them were filtered through the very naive eyes of a 19-year-old who knew very little about life at the time.
Memoir writing lays one bare to the world. When you write about parts of your life, you reveal stretches of road that led you to the person you are now. And of course, with each of us comes a story. For some, it’s a story of triumph over challenge. For others, the shaking off of a profound sadness taught us just how precious life is. However, the very act of writing about it (and now reading it aloud) is nothing if not wholly therapeutic.
I hope when you hear my voice you’ll be able to imagine the awkward 18-year-old who boarded a huge ship that day. The girl who danced the “hora” with her Jewish cabin mates. The one who solitarily played the piano in a darkened, deserted cocktail lounge. That same one who sat on her luggage not knowing when a relative might discover her at the docks. And yes. The one who was suddenly thousands of miles from home and no longer under her parents’ very protective eye. That’s the girl I hoped came through my voice as I told my growing-up tale.
Whatever you walk away with, however, I thank you in advance for listening to this short acting-out of my very young life. It means a lot to me that I can take you on a journey to the 1970s with me, reliving the naïveté some of you might have shared at the same age.
Because while life isn’t just about news, weather, and sports, there is always news at 11.