I’ve long encouraged G to write his memoirs. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and I, and I think many others, would be fascinated to learn about the often surprising links between different bands and whole genres and, more so, to read about his determination to seek out the music he was drawn to alongside (and sometimes in spite of) the prevailing musical style of each decade.
I’ll keep chipping away. You never know.
Talking about this in the pub with friends, it was suggested that I too might be a good candidate for writing a memoir. I can see why; I have lived at least six lives so far, most of them with enough drama to warrant at least a half season on Netflix.
‘Write it out’ people say, to rid yourself of dark memories and pain, or just to make sense of how you got from point A to point G without somehow ending up either in prison or a shallow grave.
In lieu of ‘writing it out’, my method of choice has always been joking about the dark stuff. Bringing it out into the light and poking fun at it. Twisting the narrative into an entertaining balloon animal; a party trick that first brings gasps, followed by laughter.
I could make a memoir funny. I could turn dangerous mistakes into slapstick and idiotic decisions into meaningful ‘sliding doors’ moments.
However, the more I think about it the more I don’t want to. Polished to perfection through decades of retelling, they could still be hilarious and thrilling to those who’ve never heard them before. But those jokes and anecdotes, which allowed me to restructure the story of my bumbling life into something that seemed consciously considered, now feel old and stale.
I hear myself start the stories and immediately I want to change the subject. To talk about something more interesting, more current. Habits die hard though and it’s somehow easier to pick through the clutter of my past experiences, dust one off and sell it as interesting (*jazz hands*), than it is to haul out a pile of as-yet unformed thoughts and works-in-progress and boldly present them, unpolished, to a critical world.
These stories, jokes and anecdotes have been my protection, a shield from both the past and the future. They say: “See, I can get through anything”. They say: “I will take life’s slings and arrows and turn them back on life itself”. They say: “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. But armour and weapons are a heavy load and here I am, still carrying them all, ‘just in case’. I could be so much lighter without them.
Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up), may be slightly bonkers but there’s a lot of her methodology that works particularly well for me as a (recovering) pathological hoarder of stuff. I find myself applying her logic not just to tangible items but to my internal beliefs and, now, my hoard of upcycled memories, repurposed as chainmail.
“Does this story ‘spark joy’?”, “Has this anecdote served its purpose?” I ask myself. More importantly, I ask: “Who gains from me passing this on?”.
If it no longer serves a purpose for me and is of little use to anyone I tell it to, other than to provide a laugh, then it’s probably time to thank the gag for its service – and with it, the period of my life it represents – and let it go.