"The life of a person is not what happened, but what he remembers and how he remembers it" Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I spotted this in my notebook the other day and it has stuck with me as I've been putting together a few more pages of my Sort of a Project Life.
Because I've been going back to the Me On Monday posts I want to use as a basis for my spreads, and I've been finding myself wanting to change them. Not on the blog, no: I'm not planning on editing posts; but as I lift the pictures and text to turn them into a personal family album I'm finding that I want to add, or even subtract. I want to shift the emphasis slightly, tell the story a different way. Has the story changed?
Does every story change with time even if we have already written it down? At the beginning of March our fence blew down. We have good neighbours, and it was easily fixed. But we discovered a whole new story later that week when we stood and chatted over a newly mended fence. The night of the storm, our neighbours had been round at friends, they phoned home to see if the family was alright, they heard about the fence. So their friends asked about us and whether we'd be easy to work with and they named names and the friend said she had lived beside a family with our name, back in the 60's : three girls and a baby boy with black curly hair. They used to knock on the door and ask if they could push that baby up and down in his pram. Well, that's years ago now: that baby's hair is still pretty black, though, and definitely still curly and he's married to me and living in a house with a dodgy fence. Our weekend of making space, as I called it when I first recorded it, had turned into a weekend of discovering just what a small place the world actually is. Same story, different story.
Or how about same story, different pictures?
I recorded our pizza meal with Little E in a blog post at the beginning of March; but I didn't use these photos partly because I thought I might keep them for something else. When I went back, of course I realised this is where they belonged. There he is: same story, different pictures.
That's Sort of a Project Life.
Details, Details
No extra pictures today. Just a couple of quick extras
- That "make stuff" stamp is from Gossamer Blue
- The diecuts are all from one Simple Stories packet
- My pages are curling as I feed them through the typewriter and that's making them hard to photograph. Either I need to flatten them under something heavy first (no!) or I need to give up trying to force them through the creaking rollers of my old typewriter. This is a possibility. If I break my Dad's machine I'd be sorry. Our printer won't print onto card, so it might be handwriting from now on. We'll see. I'm not caught up
24 comments:
Same story, different angles. It's not changing an already written down story if you subsequently discover an extra bit. More of a postscript. Most of us very rarely tell a tale exactly the same as the original telling. I like stories with the whole six degrees of separation thing going on ...
Another wonderful post, Sian. It makes me think a bit about how I tell the stories in my PL spreads and whether I tell enough or not. The format seems to dictate brief journaling, and perhaps I need to think about how to change that. I love that quote. You will eventually see it in my PL album. It's the first pocket on a page I haven't figured out yet, but I know that it is just what I want to start it.
Firstly thank you Sian, for the kind words on my blog (and for understanding xx)
You always write such interesting posts ... I felt I was listening to it over the garden fence with you.
I find it interesting that you use your blog on your pages, and rightly so, I suppose. xx
Loved that quote & how it is reflected in your not quite PL book! Oh, don't break the typewriter!!! That would be a tragic story to tell indeed....I really like the white space. It DOES have the look of a magazine about it...fabulous:):)
We've been having conversations along these lines and the way we all remember family events slightly differently, or remember different parts of the event. The question is, if it's discussed enough, is your recall of the event what you really remember or, is it mixed in with what you've been told or reminded of.
added information should be added, don't change the story just make another chapter. I love it when a story leads to another story - just can't be beaten
WOW enjoyed reading about how connections can be made. Simple chat over tea, a fence, in the street, can & certainly do lead to some interesting post scripts to our own stories. Oh so many six degrees of separation.
You could type the words onto plain white paper, then scan that into a blank word document, and print it out on card through your printer. Does that make sense? It's how we add signatures to electronic letters at work! If you need finer details, let me know!
Loved the fence story, it really is a small world!
who have thought a garden fence could tell such a story - it really is a small world x
Oh, Sian, what an absolutely absolutely lovely post! Loved all your tales, your ponderings and especially loved the coincidence you described....loved that you used a Garcia Marquez quote...the more I read him, the more I find I appreciate just how very wise he truly was. Love, love, love this post!!!!! Re: crumpling as you feed through the typewriter....would it be an awful lot of bother to type on to paper and then cut out the lines of typing and stick them on individually? It's the only way I can think of it looking decent....if you used a whole block of paper on which you'd typed, it'd look weird, I think? Or perhaps you could actually use a good quality paper as the base for your pages (which you can type on) and then stick that whole page to something sturdier? It'd get round the problem of having to fiddle with strips or blocks of 'typed on paper' (Hope that makes sense...I've just been in an 'all Spanish' meeting and it always does my head in and makes me go temporarily bonkers when it comes to speaking/writing English....!
A very enjoyable read :), Sian. I am always fascinated how we tell our stories. And I love your 'Sort of PL' pages. Like Helen, I was wondering if you could type onto plain paper, then cut and stick it onto your card - though I think it would look fine in a block especially if you were tucking it under/behind a hinged photo. Yes, you certainly will want to keep your dad's typewriter intact :).
Wow! Small world indeed. I love these kinds of connections. I'm really enjoying your take on PL :)
I love that story!!! It certainly deserves it's own page! Also, your opening quote is going to be what I use on my next title or end page! So perfect!
I can never get tired of talking about stories! Yes, I think they definitely change over time - you can trap one tale under the nib of your pen ... but you go to tell it again and you just set free another!
I love the coincidence too [although things like that tend to make me pause to think that you really never know *who knows who* ... and you should be careful when you're gossiping etc about someone! ;-)]
What a lovely post Sian, and I can resonate with this. Stories do unfold and I love what you are doing with your Not Quite Project Life. This is similar to what I have in mind for me weekly 'a year in photos'. Sometimes it is good to add more but the blog is not always the place to do this. I admire your writing the pages on a typewriter - you must be very accurate! Mine would have typos or other errors and I am lucky as my printer will accept reasonably thick card.
I loved the story about your fence and the link this unfolded, it is indeed a small world.
I so love this project of yours and this post. So much to think about - how and what we remember and how that influences what we do as we move forward. I think it is always changing.
Rinda
I know what you mean, I sometimes blog a story or scrapbook it and then when I re-read I add in more or change the way I am telling. It's normally from scrapbook page to blog for me :)
What a wonderful way you have with words and pictures and bits & bobs of course. I love that you are doing a sort of PL. I love that it is on A4 paper. you are just so good at this and so inspirational. A happy start to my blog reading day.
Lovely stories and I've been getting organised to move blog posts into scrapbook pages and have been thinking similar things. I think adding in bits or tightening up the story both don't alter the meaning. Adding in another aspect or another voice is a good thing too.
Great stories and if they change in the rebelling so what? Just a different angle and there is nothing wrong in that :)
This project is coming along so nicely! I think it's not so much that the story has changed, but that each one has expanded or shifted a little after a little time has passed and you ponder/enjoy it again.
Fantastic pages as usual, I don't think the story changes, I think it gains a bit of weight here and there :)
I've missed dropping in round here to see your wonderful creations. Always lovely, always inspirational. Love your way of adapting PL to suit you - they are fabulous!
What a wonderful story and I love your take on Project Life. I always start mine out with the best of intentions but it tapers off to leaving it. I just don't take enough daily/weekly pictures. :) Maybe now I should get at it.
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