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Why a recent life writing book isn’t on my recommended list
It’s important to me to stress some sense of urgency about writing about your life—but I don’t think you’ll have regrets if you don’t write about it ALL.
There are lots of books I read and don’t recommend to you, as they’re not worth your time. For a list of the top titles I think ARE worth your time (with notes on why), check out this post.
I read a lot of books about the craft of writing and about life writing and memoir in particular, and I often share the ones I recommend on social media or on the blog. There are plenty of books I read (or, on occasion, only start to read) then decide they are not worth sharing.
I am not a newspaper columnist; it’s not in me to share a bad review—so the ones I think aren’t worth your time, I usually just skip over. Today, though, I wanted to write a “negative” review…sort of. Without naming the author or title, I thought I’d share what I did not like about a particular recent read.
This book purported to be a step-by-step guide to writing about your life. There were a few good writing prompts sprinkled throughout, but beyond that the author was redundant and made few if any insightful or truly helpful points. On the contrary, they hammered home—on literally every other page—how if you don’t write about every single thing that happens in your life, you will be filled with regret.
“The consequence of not taking action is a life’s worth of memories lost,” they write. “Regret. Regret. Regret.”
Now, don’t get me wrong: I see regret all the time. People who wish they had captured their parents’ stories before they died. People who wish they had begun writing their own stories sooner, before memories began to fade, or before illness or dementia interfered. Heck, the quote I share most often is from William Zinsser: “One of the saddest sentences I know is ‘I wish I had asked my mother about that.’”
However, I don’t think we need to worry about remembering ALL THE THINGS.
“Regret,” the author writes. “Nothing documented. I was forgetting my life. You’ll forget your life too. We always do.”
These repeating remonstrations about forgetting our lives rubbed me the wrong way. They reminded me of the compulsive diarying that Sarah Manguso explored in Ongoingness: The End of a Diary (an incredible short read that I highly recommend—and, ironically, despite the title, Manguso’s diary writing has not ended, just shifted the purpose it holds in her life).
Early in that book Manguso writes:
“I didn’t want to lose anything. That was my main problem… I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention. Experience in itself wasn’t enough. The diary was my defense against waking up at the end of my life and realizing I’d missed it.”
We should not, in my opinion, write about our lives out of fear. We should be conscious of our mortality and feel a sense of urgency about writing something thoughtful to pass on, yes—but it’s my belief that “that something” can be as brief and straightforward as an ethical will or a legacy letter. And when that life writing takes a longer form, such as a memoir or a life story book or even an extended diary—that it should aim to find meaning in some way, not merely record all our experiences, mundane and profound, for the sake of not forgetting.
We’ve all got enough pressures in our lives without adding an unnecessary one around preservation. Story sharing can be good for your health, research shows. And it’s gratifying, too. But it needn’t be burdensome or reinforce fears. It should be accessible and even enjoyable.
So please do get your life writing project off your bucket list. Start small, if you like (this two-word prompt will help, I promise). And if you’re ready to embark on a bigger project and would like some professional help, reach out to see how we can work together.
But don’t worry about forgetting all the time. Be present. Embrace life as you are living it. Pay attention! And make room for your writing amidst your experiences!
Life Story Links: June 4, 2024
This week’s curated roundup is overflowing with thought-provoking stories about how we preserve our personal histories, memoir tips and recommendations & more.
“Comb through your experiences. Look through a different lens. Walk around a memory, a time period, or a specific event. Interview the memory and jot down questions about it.”
—Rita Sepetys
Vintage postcard of black bear cubs from the New York Zoological Park, circa 1914, courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
When our stories overlap
‘IT DEPENDS ON WHO TELLS THE STORY’
Her father “knew how to tell a good story because he grew up in Appalachia, where life is rich with history and the best storytellers are both born and made.” Memoirist Bobi Conn on her family’s long tradition of unreliable narrators and morally gray characters.
NOW OR LATER?
Lilly Dancyger did not let her family read her first memoir before it was published, but she had a very different approach with her second. Here she weighs in on navigating hard (subjective) truths and who you should invite to read your memoir in advance.
A LAYERED NARRATIVE & A STAR TURN
Launching June 5, Pack One Bag is an audio podcast that “tells the epic true story of an Italian family, split apart by love, fascism, and war. Through shocking discoveries—and Stanley Tucci’s artistry—an enthralling personal history comes to life.” Watch the trailer:
How we tell stories
THE CHANGING SHAPE OF NONFICTION
“I was struck then and am struck now...by the notion that confessional writing is subversive.” Christy Moore reviews The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting by Lee Gutkind (the book is subtitled “How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-do-wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction”).
CONVERSATION-BASED STORYTELLING APP
A new app called Autobiographer, which has partnered with Katie Couric to help spread the word, uses “generative AI, voice interfaces, and robust privacy tools” to help individuals preserve their life stories.
Put it in the post
LOVE LETTER
“I like the feeling of knowing that whoever is on the receiving end will smile when they see my letter in their mailbox. That a small slice of me made its way by truck, car, boat, or plane to my receiver’s hands.” Samantha Dion Baker shares some of the most creative letter-writing ideas I’ve ever seen—a joy to scroll through even if she doesn’t inspire you to act!
SEALED FOREVER?
Last week I shared thoughts on the ethics and obligations around reading personal letters that belonged to a deceased family member—I’d love to know, after you read the blog post, how you think you’d react to such a newfound family history bounty!
HISTORICAL CORRESPONDENCE
A letter about harp singing and squirrel stew is one of the primary documents Michael Aday chose to help tell the story of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in his book, Letters from the Smokies. The librarian had 1.4 million records in the park’s archival collection to sift through to help tell its stories.
Memoirs and those who’ve gone before us
THE RESTRICTIONS OF TRADITION
“For Mom and me, visiting our grandmothers was going to be more complicated this time—not just because they were deceased, but because access to graves in Taiwan isn’t straight forward.” Eve J. Chung on tradition, family, and mourning in Taiwan.
GENERATIONAL SHIFTS
Claire Messud’s autobiographically inspired new novel includes characters modeled after late family members. “It was a joy to be with them and to be trying to understand their thoughts. It felt like the opposite of passing judgment.”
THIS WRITING IS ‘AN ACT OF SERVICE’
“Every time I learn something new about a lost loved one, I can’t quite say that it’s like they’re alive again—but man, it’s still a beautiful feeling to discover that there is still more to discover.” Professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine advice for how to write a eulogy.
A MEMOIR HE NEVER THOUGHT HE’D WRITE
Sebastian Junger, whose writing I have long been a fan of, has a new book, In My Time of Dying—a memoir that weaves his journalistic sensibility with his personal experience. Because I plan on reading the book, I have not watched this video, but the hourlong interview looks interesting (find a briefer dive with Anderson Cooper here):
Journalist Sebastian Junger interviewed by Miwa Messer about his new memoir, In My Time of Dying.
Before it’s too late…
GIVE THEM A LITTLE NUDGE
“As I watch my friends grow older and enter new phases of life, I’ve noticed a common thread: Year after year, many of us happen upon questions we wish we’d asked the loved ones who are no longer with us.” Isabel Fattal shares three stories about the power of family stories.
‘I’VE HAD A GOOD LIFE’
“Also known as a pre-funeral or a life celebration, a living funeral is like a unique memorial service held for a person before he or she dies.”
A GRANDFATHER’S WISDOM
In the most recent episode of the podcast Who We Remember, video biographer and host Jamie Yuenger speaks with Liam McCormick about his desire to document the life story of his grandfather and the importance of knowing one’s family history and how it can help make sense of oneself. Watch below, or listen in here.
...and a few more links
California mother helps others cope with loss through new children’s book.
Memoir review: The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris, One Lesson at a Time by Jane Bertch
Book review: First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger
Ta-Nehisi Coates returns to nonfiction and explores the power of stories in upcoming The Message.
How a new biography makes sense of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s short life
Short takes
To read or not to read? How to handle a deceased family member’s personal letters
Discovering a stack of handwritten letters can feel like winning the family history lottery—but is it always the right thing to read (or share) them?
I have created wonderful heirloom books filled with letters that help tell the story of a family. Sometimes, though, we may not feel so comfortable reading our deceased loved ones’ personal reflections. Before you include their letters in your book, reflect on how they’d feel about it—then, make an informed, thoughtful decision.
My parents divorced when I was a child, and I do not have a relationship with my father. But I was close to my mother until her death. She shared a great deal with me, and we spoke openly about our feelings. When I was sorting her estate I came upon things I was excited to find: letters from me that she had saved, a memory-keeping journal where a handful of questions were answered in her pristine penmanship (how I wish she had written more in those pages!), a scrapbook of her youth that she had made in her fifties. I reproduced some things, including favorite handwritten recipes and letters between us, in a tribute book I wrote in her honor about a year after she died. I did not, however, include any of the letters sent between her and her newlywed husband when he was stationed in Korea.
If my mother were alive and we had discovered those saved letters together, I have no doubt she would have shared details with me. She would have told me why she saved them even after a bitter divorce. She would have talked about young love and her dreams and she would have answered any questions I had.
But my mother was no longer here to answer questions or to provide context. At first I was excited to unearth that correspondence; then, as now, I would cherish anything that connected me to my mom. I opened the top letter and began reading. The letter was intimate. It wasn’t sexual, but it was clearly intended for my mother’s eyes only. I refolded the letter, put it back in its envelope, and chose not to read any further. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, and I wanted to respect that.
Was I bound by some moral code not to read my mother’s letters? I don’t think so. To me, it just felt wrong. So I followed my gut.
Indeed, most genealogists regard letters as valuable family artifacts to be mined for family history information and stories. As genealogist Denise May Lovesick writes in her piece “Ethics, Etiquette and Old Family Letters,” “to reject reading old letters on the basis of ‘personal privacy’ seems counter-productive.”
In an online exchange about the ethics of reading letters of a deceased person, questions arise: Can the dead be rights-holders, morally? Is it an invasion of privacy to read letters not intended for you? Does the deceased have a right to have their memory protected? As one contributor shares, “the damage caused to that person is zero (he's dead), while everybody will benefit from the historical knowledge.”
Is it always okay to read (and share) letters from our deceased family?
So while it may not be morally or ethically wrong to read your ancestors’ letters (I have created quite a few books of family correspondence that are treasured parts of those families’ legacies!), if you have reservations, consider these questions:
What is giving you pause?
You may be worried that the letters will reveal a side of your family member you knew nothing about; that may be the case, and you should prepare yourself for that inevitability should you decide to read them. Perhaps you feel like you would be invading their privacy; if you have conviction that if they were alive, they would not want you to read the letters, then it may be prudent to respect those wishes, surmised though they may be.
Are you reluctant to read the letters, to share them, or both?
Remember that there is a difference between you or another loved one reading your parents’ letters, versus digitizing and printing them for a wider audience. You cannot decide whether to share a personal correspondence until you read it, and then you will need to make an informed decision: Will reproducing the letters (in a family history book, for instance) provide insight or historical context without maligning the letter-writer? Then you may want to share them. Will reproducing the letters reveal sensitive information that might hurt someone else, living or deceased? Then you may want to reconsider.
How would you want someone to act if the letters were your own?
Imagine you have a stash of letters hidden in your closet—they are meaningful to you, but private. You have saved them, and hidden them, for reasons known only to you. If a family member were to discover them after you died, would you want them to read them? Such consideration may help you make a mindful decision.
There is no black-and-white answer to the question, Should I read my deceased loved one’s personal letters? It is not morally wrong to read them, nor is it necessarily an invasion of their privacy. But there may be good reasons your gut tells you not to read them—and if that is the case, I hope these reflections will help you come to an answer that is right for you.
If you have a collection of letters that you feel tells an important part of your family history and would like help building an heirloom book around them, please reach out to discuss how we could work together.
Life Story Links: May 21, 2024
“Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives, and we will call it fate.”
—Carl Jung
Photograph of female workers gathered outside the Dix Building in New York City, by Lewis Wickes Hine, courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Memory, memories, and memoir
THE SELF IN RELATIONSHIP
“My father wrote half of me into being, I suppose. My mother wrote the other half.” Jane Wong “on memoir, permission, and the thorny terrain of writing about family.”
TURNING PAGES OF OUR HISTORY
“Perhaps one of the most memorable treasures women of the Civil War passed onto future generations were letters they sent to their husbands. These chronicles of daily life embraced sorrow, joy, fear, and love.”
WHO ARE THEY?
“What if we began our own character development work with this mandate in mind: Tell the stories they told, the lessons they taught, and the mind that has become our own.” Beth Kephart on lessons from Amy Tan.
“THIS IS MY LIFE”
I’m not sure why LitHub is now presenting an excerpt from Working, Studs Terkel’s classic oral history of Americans’ working lives originally published in 2004, but I’m glad they did: Meet Babe, a checker at a supermarket somewhere in America.
WHY FORGETTING IS BENEFICIAL
“‘Memory,’ writes neuroscientist Charan Ranganath in his new book Why We Remember, ‘is much, much more than an archive of the past; it is the prism through which we see ourselves, others, and the world.’”
‘NAMING ONE’S OWN EXPERIENCE’
“Reconciling a writing life with the life of a mother has always felt like an impossible task,” memoirist Emily C. Bloom writes in this look at the legacy of Pearl S. Buck’s The Child Who Never Grew.
What a picture’s worth
THE HEIRLOOMIST
Last week I wrote about a new coffee table book from photographer Shana Novak, aka “The Heirloomist,” in which the stories of the unexpected family heirlooms within “will play your heartstrings like a symphony.”
PAIRING ANNIE ERNAUX WITH PHOTOS
“With photography...there’s this presumption of the ‘truth’ of the camera, which is also an expectation that a writer like Ernaux, who uses the first-person deliberately, comes up against. In her case, the presumption that the first-person is ‘true’ and not fictive.”
DYNAMIC, CROWD-SOURCED ARCHIVE
The nonprofit cultural heritage organization Permanent.org shares details about its public gallery, a “rich collection of public archives” that they say are a celebration of “the power of personal stories and the impact they can have on future generations.”
FINDING THE ‘SOUL THREAD’
Have you ever heard of a legacy doula? Meet Nancy Rose from the Compass Rose Legacy Foundation and hear her thoughts on how exploring one’s own legacy (through words and photos) helps bring wholeness to individual storytellers in this podcast:
Stories told through food
FROM MAMA’S KITCHEN
“Her food was there all my life, part of my most literal sustenance, and yet I took for granted that the meaning and memory baked into everything she produced would always be there.”
HER EXPERIENCE AS A GREEK JEW
Becky Hadeed talks with a Holocaust survivor about her complicated story “of sacrifice, love, and gratitude,” about the long legacy of a good deed, and the enduring comfort of a jar of cookies (in this case, Greek Koulourakia). Listen below:
Short takes
A coffee table book about quirky heirlooms? Yes, please!
Shana Novak photographed 100 personal keepsakes and shares the heartfelt stories behind each in her beautiful new coffee table book, “The Heirloomist.”
The latest addition to my own coffee table: this warm-and-fuzzy, beautifully photographed book from Shana Novak, The Heirloomist: 100 Treasures and the Stories They Tell (Chronicle Books, April 2024).
Back in 2016, when Modern Heirloom Books was yet a newborn baby, I was working on one of my first big projects—a retrospective of a family-owned film company that was celebrating 30 years in business. It was an in-depth undertaking, with multiple interviews with the founder and a series of interviews with a handful of other players in the company’s history. One of the most fun aspects of the initial research was first watching a bunch of their early footage, then getting to explore the basement archive of the physical media that held the original films. Having spanned three decades, their stash of films covered a whole landscape of moviemaking technology—formats included 35mm, 16mm, 2-inch video, 1-inch video, three-quarter-inch video, VHS, DV, DV-Cam, HDV, Beta, Beta SP, Digi-Beta, DVC-Pro, DVC-ProHD, XD-Cam, and on…and on. So, of course I wanted to photograph some of them for the book—a little visual timeline, if you will.
The photographer I tapped to capture these images was experienced in both editorial and commercial work, and we were connected through our tenure in national magazines—and her personal brand, The Heirloomist, was in many ways, like Modern Heirloom Books, a newborn business baby at the time. I adored her clean and creative approach to photographing things, but more so was drawn to her instinctive sense that she was photographing the stories behind the things. That’s what mattered to me, and it’s what mattered to her, too.
A spread from an heirloom book I created in 2016 celebrating the 30th anniversary of a family-run business—it shows an old film canister photographed by Shana Novak for the project. For this client, their films help tell their story, and the striking visuals help bring that story to vivid life.
I have been thrilled to watch from the sidelines as Shana Novak (aka The Heirloomist) has turned her love of quirky heirlooms and photography not only into a thriving business, but now, into a beautiful coffee table book from Chronicle! The Heirloomist: 100 Treasures and the Stories They Tell (Chronicle, April 2024), as you can no doubt tell from the subtitle, is a book after my own heart.
“The definition of heirloom, in my family, is clearly open to interpretation,” Shana writes in the book’s introduction (I won’t give away exactly what she is talking about—you’ll have to pick up a copy of the book for yourself).
And it’s that element of surprise that I love most about the book. Sure, there are what some might consider ‘traditional’ heirlooms within (think jewelry and baby shoes, for instance) but it’s the unexpected items—and the personal stories attached to them—that resonate with me.
“It’s garbage to anyone else but me,” one subject says about a fork—yes, a fork—that she treasures…with good reason, as the brief, vulnerable story accompanying the photograph of the fork attests. There are wonderfully touching, funny, and warm stories about heirlooms as idiosyncratic as a twenty-something-year-old Etch-a-Sketch (perhaps my favorite heirloom in the book) and a Styrofoam cup.
Memories are attached to these things, memories that those who hold onto the objects cherish—and through the majesty of her photography, Shana honors those memories in a most unique and lasting way.
Some of the treasures in The Heirloomist are expensive, and some are worth nothing from a monetary perspective. “But all are priceless, precisely because their stories will play your heartstrings like a symphony,” Shana writes. Indeed, they will.
For anyone who loves stories, I recommend this book.
For anyone who loves photography, I recommend this book.
And for anyone who might want some inspiration around telling the stories of your own family’s unique heirlooms, I highly recommend this book.
What (unique, unexpected) heirlooms are stashed in your family archive?
Note: This is an unsolicited review of a book I purchased at full price. I did not receive any compensation or free products in exchange, and any endorsements within this post are my own.
More Modern Heirloom inspiration: Heirlooms can be unexpected—such as the gorgeous glass doorknobs on this spread: “I was born into the bedroom with the glass doorknob and I didn’t leave it until I got married at age 23,” the subject remembers; she uses the object as a jumping-off point for stories from her life in that home (she even took the doorknob with her when the house was sold—a true heirloom). Read more about interesting graphics to consider adding to your family history book here.
Life Story Links: May 7, 2024
A roundup overflowing with podcasts, videos, and articles on the topics of memoir, life story writing, family history preservation, and family photo legacy.
“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing and love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.”
—Sylvia Plath
Vintage poster produced between 1936 and 1938 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Pieces of the past
VERSIONS OF ONE’S STORY
“It took me decades merely to infer that my grandfather’s life and character surely included more than the mere few funny stories suggested.” Octogenarian Sydney Lea tries to shape his grandfather’s narrative.
VIRAL TIKTOK BEGAN AT GOODWILL
“April’s decision to bring Lucy’s treat jar home adds another layer to this tale. It’s a testament to the power of empathy, a reminder that the things we cherish tell our stories long after we're gone.”
THE TABLE WAS SET
“It’s such a deeply spiritual, fulfilling thing that I can bring my safta’s memory back to life in this plate of food.” Jennifer Ophir on the very last meal her grandmother cooked for her family.
I SAY: DELETE WITHOUT GUILT…
Last week I wrote about why a recent iPhone ad got my hackles up—preview the ad here, then click through to read why I think having more digital memory isn’t necessarily good for holding onto our memories:
Family history finds
UPCOMING GENEALOGY CONFERENCE
The National Genealogical Society 2024 Virtual Family History Conference, “Expanding Possibilities,” will be held May 16–18. Check out the preliminary program schedule here or visit their website to register.
‘SOMETIMES IT’S NOT SO EASY’
Experts from Ancestry dive deep into how to find the stories behind the names and dates on a family tree and “helping people connect.” Click through to watch this hourlong video with behind-the-scenes tips and tricks:
2,400 GENERATIONS
Archie Moore, a Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist, traced his family tree back 65,000 years—then, in chalk, created an ephemeral artwork that documented that genealogy and won a top prize at the Venice Biennale. Called “kith and kin,” the installation “is a memorial to Indigenous lives lost—but it’s also about global common humanity.” Read more here (“Moore’s ancestral connections—real and imagined—branch out onto the ceiling. The dimly lit gallery becomes a church, a cave, and a classroom”) and watch below:
NEW FROM THE BAREFOOT GENEALOGIST
And last up in the family history world, a new podcast from genealogist Crista Cowan, Stories That Live in Us. “I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything,” she says. Listen to the trailer here:
Making memories last—on craft and conversation
STORYTELLING INSPIRATION, PROMPTS, ACTIVITIES
“In between what we expect to happen and what happens, there’s this delicious tension that often lends itself to some amazing true stories.” This month on Storytelling School with The Moth: Expectations vs. Reality.
‘NOSTALGIC APPEAL AND STAYING POWER’
“I’ve always appreciated a nicely curated photo album because the subpar pics rarely make it in. It’s all first class. It requires thought and effort to compile your life’s greatest hits in images.”
‘SMALL MOMENTS MATTER’
I couldn’t choose just one quote to share from this wonderful conversation between Rachael Cerrotti and Micaela Blei, so listen in below as they talk about how personal narratives change with time, how to get comfortable sharing your story on stage, and how memories of their grandmothers brought them together. (Dive even deeper into Micaela’s storytelling here, and read more about the connection between these memoirists here.)
Lives in print
CELEBRATING LIFE THROUGH FOOD
Aimee Nezhukumatathil weaves a personal memoir through food in her new book, Bite by Bite. “Food can be a map toward home, toward memory, toward lineage, her book argues. And with it, she beckons us to explore.”
PERSONAL HISTORY OF AN INTERVIEWING LEGEND
“As Susan Page relates in The Rulebreaker, her compelling, deliciously readable biography of [Barbara] Walters, for Cronkite and the other giants of broadcast journalism, the idea that Walters...would be elevated to TV journalism’s most august position was beyond the pale.”
CHRONICLING THE SIXTIES
“An Unfinished Love Story is, as the title indicates, an account of personal loss. It also turns out to be a reflection on the process of constructing history, suggesting how time, perspective and stories left unwritten can shape our view of the past.”
PRIVATE LIFE, PUBLIC PERSONA
Letter by letter, former N.F.L. player Steve Gleason typed his memoir with his eyes. In A Life Impossible, he shares “the most lacerating and vulnerable times” of his life.
REMEMBERING PAUL AUSTER
I am often advising people on the best way to honor their lost loved ones in print, and I think these two examples of remembrances about the late Paul Auster are wonderful examples: One after the Joe Brainard book I Remember, and the other a life in quotes—both revealing and intimate in different ways.
...and a few more links
Year-long research project imparts personal histories to West Virginia students
In a recent Life Writers Vlog, Patricia Charpentier talks about Alice Sebold’s memoir, Lucky.
“Can memoir help us find our true selves?” asks ghostwriter Pat Pihl
The best autobiographies to entertain and inspire, according to Vogue
TikTok photographer’s powerful photo restorations tell stories of love and culture
“British parents’ peculiar keepsakes: Teeth, locks, and tiny treasures”
Short takes
More memory, more memories? Nope.
Sure, smart phone memory is getting cheaper—but is that reason enough to save every photo in an endless scroll? Don’t lose your memories amidst digital clutter!
As most of the TV I consume these days is streaming, I don’t see nearly as many commercials as I used to. But sports are different, and I happened to see this ad from Apple during the NBA playoffs—and maybe because of what I do for a living, I couldn’t get it out of my mind:
How did this “Don’t Let Me Go’ ad make you feel? My guesses: guilty (about possibly deleting photos of someone you love!), hopeful (about not having to delete those photos anymore!), and maybe even nostalgic (“awww, remember all those special moments I’ve captured?!”)…
But before you go upping your device memory, consider that it’s not just money you’ll be spending to avoid inconvenience—it’s memory-keeping capital. Let me explain…
Where’d all my good pix go?
There are a whole bunch of huge numbers illustrating how we take so many more photos these days, especially since the advent of digital cameras—but, from my perspective, the numbers are so ridiculously large that it’s hard to even grasp their magnitude (1.5 trillion photos were taken in 2022, for example). But here’s one statistic that says something beyond the scale it measures:
Approximately 4.5 trillion photos are stored on Google Photos, with 28 billion uploaded each week, but most are never viewed, according to data from Google.
While I can’t grasp those numbers—28 billion pictures a week!!!—I am not surprised by that last morsel: Most of those photos stored on our phones are NEVER VIEWED!
You know what might actually be surprising, though? It’s not just the pictures of the paperback you might want to buy or the cheesy pizza you just Snapped that go unviewed—it’s the ones of your grandchild at the playground and your mom blowing out her birthday candles…the ones that hold special memories. That’s because those photos are lost amidst the digital clutter. They’re sitting on a device that you use to keep creating more and more content, without curating it. And when the photos are lost, the memories just might be, too.
Skip the guilt and say goodbye to some photos!
Despite how the folks at Apple want you to feel—guilty for deleting pictures of those you love!! privileged enough to just buy more memory and store ALL your photos for all time!!—I say: Forget the guilt. It’s much better to be intentional about what photos we save than to just mindlessly add a photo (or 20) a day to an endless scroll.
Back in 2015 I blogged about what to do if you are a “photo hoarder”—and, I must say, the post seems almost quaint now. Almost 10 years on and pretty much everyone I know is a photo hoarder, but our devices and the services that power them have made it not only easy but acceptable. Don’t buy in.
What will you gain if, instead of hoarding your digital photos, you cull through them semi-regularly and delete what’s not worth saving?
First off, you won’t have to spring for the extra money to increase your device storage (even if it seems like a negligible amount to you, it’s not always worth it).
Secondly, you will be creating a photo legacy that is BOTH manageable and special. Trust me, I’ve seen the flip side all too often with clients and friends: A parent or loved one passes away, and the mess of stuff, both physical and digital, is so overwhelming that much of it ends up in the trash. Think it won’t happen to you? Read this (please).
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you will be able to access, enjoy, and share your photo memories in ways that are easy and that bring joy!
So, where do I begin…?
While my intent today was mostly about getting you to think more deeply about this topic, of course, if it resonates, the next logical step is for you to take some action. Here’s some help:
want to use your photos to document memories?
One quick (joyful!) way to share one photo (who doesn’t have time for THAT?!)
How to choose the best family photos to use as writing prompts
want to decrease the number of photos you have?
How to organize your family archive as a resource for sparking memories
Follow these basic photo organizing principles so you leave a manageable photo legacy for your kids.
What to do to ensure your kids don’t throw out your family photos
If the DIY route isn’t your thing, consider hiring a professional photo manager to help you get your family photo library under control. You can search for a pro near you here, or if you’re in the greater NY/NJ/CT area, drop me a note and I can refer you to a trusted colleague.
Free printable guide
Our thoughtful guide, “How to Use Photographs as Prompts for Writing Life Stories,” is a handy reference for all those photos you do decide to save!
Life Story Links: April 23, 2024
Personal historian and Modern Heirloom Books founder Dawn Roode curates a bi-weekly selection of what she’s reading and liking—here, for week of April 22, 2024.
“Words that come from the heart enter the heart.”
—the Torah
Vintage poster produced between 1936 and 1938 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Memories, memoir, and more
LIFE AS STORY
“We live in the tribe, in story, in lyric and meter and song that does not end,” Dorothy Allison says. “In story—the ones we share and those we have not yet crafted—we live forever.”
WRITE ON, MY FRIENDS!
Good writing prompts will rid you of blank-page anxiety—and you can easily write your own! Last week I shared five easy steps to drafting a library of personalized memoir prompts.
FAMILY HISTORY PRESERVATION TIPS
In honor of preservation week, Permanent.org shared two posts on intentional, effective memory-keeping: “Gathering & Transferring Your Digital Materials in One Place” and “Tips for Preserving Your Physical Materials.”
LIFE WRITING WISDOM
“This is sacred work, so you should have a bit of fear; otherwise, what are you writing for?” Megan Febuary writes about memoir. Here, the memoir writing checklist she says she could have used years ago.
DRAWING HER WORLD
“The other day one of my boys said to me, after looking at my stack of sketchbooks, ‘Mom, this is a crazy amount of memories… whenever we decide to sit down and look through these, it will take weeks!’” Samantha Dion Baker shares some of her favorite sketchbook pages with thoughts on why they resonate.
CROSSROADS
“Some moments [in our lives] stand out as particularly poignant, ripe for reflection, celebration, and preservation,” legacy filmmaker Jamie Yuenger writes in this piece identifying seven of these times when beginning a legacy project may make great sense.
INVITING FAMILY STORIES
“A kind of genealogical amnesia was eating holes in these family histories as permanently as moths eat holes in the sweaters lovingly knitted by our ancestors.” Elizabeth Keating on the questions we don’t ask our families but should.
Stories, across generations
“FOR VANESSA TO WRITE A BOOK”
“Is that why you left me these stories? You couldn’t give me the love and nurturing I needed, but you could give me this, your version of your life in your hand. You could give me answers, so that with them I could do what I’ve been trying to do for more than fifteen years—‘Para que Vanessa escriba un libro.’”
INTERGENERATIONAL TALE OF A DIVIDED LAND
“While living in Vietnam, my father remained a constant presence in my thoughts, despite our minimal communication. I began to contemplate the concept of the motherland, the land of our ancestors, and think more about the hardships my father had endured to rebuild his life.”
ABUELAS’ INTANGIBLE HERITAGE
A new project from Latinos in Heritage Conservation is transforming research and geodata into rich and engaging StoryMaps to honor and preserve Latine histories, changing the way we remember the past.
On recent memoirs of note
‘PATRIOT’
Before he died in prison, Aleksei Navalny wrote a memoir. It’s coming this fall, and has already been translated into 11 languages, including Russian.
REMEMBERING A DISAPPEARING PAST
“I am looking for the past, I say.” Suzanne Scanlon on the act of ‘walking into the past’ to write her memoir, Committed, and of returning to fact-check her memories, pre-publication.
MATZO BALLS AND MEMORIES
“Joan Nathan has spent her life exploring Jewish culture through recipes. Now in her 80s, her new book is her most personal work yet—excavating her own culinary history.” Listen to the story:
Short takes