I remember...
Dear all
When this lands in your inbox, I will be on a self-directed writing retreat as part of my Arts Council funded Moonpause project. I’m staying near Winchester as it’s one end of the South Downs dark skies reserve and hoping for clear nights so I can see the full moon!
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an exercise I did with my Thursday morning group last week. I often invite people to freewrite beginning with the phrase, ‘I remember…’ and sometimes to alternate it with ‘I don’t remember…’, but this time I first showed them an extract from Joe Brainard’s book, first published in 1975, in which he began every sentence with ‘I remember…’.
Then, I handed everyone a sheet of paper. We each wrote a sentence beginning with ‘I remember…’ and passed it to the next person. We read what had been handed to us and added a new sentence beginning with ‘I remember…'. In this way, each memory sparked off another and made us think of things we never would have remembered otherwise. This is one of the benefits of writing in a group!
This was the result:
I remember the climb up the steps ascending to Whitley Abbey.
I remember climbing steps in Thailand for merit in this life. To a temple. Buddhist.
I remember climbing up a ladder and swinging up into the attic. Then I needed help getting down.
I remember my friend’s little sister being so frustrated that her hair wouldn’t grow, that her mum made her long plaits on a headband out of old pairs of tights.
I remember carving Otis Redding onto my desktop and the date he died and how light the wood was after I scratched.
I remember all the school kids being told not to go on the cinder path on the way to school, because a girl had been murdered there. It was at the time of the Moors murders.
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I remember how your hands smelled of metal when you came off the big 8-seater rocking horse in the playground.
I remember the pink beaded handbag with the beaded tassels trailing below.
I remember my Nana always having Tic Tacs in her handbag and pulling them out just when I needed one.
I remember being given a Polo mint in church to keep me quiet - it never felt quite big enough.
I remember someone from school falling off the monkey bars and breaking their wrist - I was too scared to ever try them after that.
I remember being pinned down on a gym mat by the girl who everyone thought was a ‘lesso’. She was very strong and good at shot put.
I remember being mortified on the dance floor when the boy I was dancing with suddenly sank to his knees in a free expression way to U2’s ‘New Year’s Day’. I danced away from him, feeling a bit cowardly.
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I remember the smell of telephone boxes and the broken mirrors and litter in the corner.
I remember the smooth desk lid at school, polished by thousands of hands.
I remember the feel of the leather purse I’d bite between my teeth.
I remember sniffing men’s shoes in the stockroom at my Clarks Saturday job, loving the smell of new.
I remember blocks of Lifebuoy soap and my mother cleaning collars with it.
I remember the hot summer teenage days when I would walk to the phone box on the corner to phone my friends, rather than risk my conversations being overheard by my parents.
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I remember the old lady who walked around Lingfield Road rec with a doll in a red pram, telling passers-by that it was her baby.
I remember the man in East Grinstead who had the longest sideburns I had ever seen.
I remember being driven over the border from France to Spain with my friend and two Frenchmen we’d met at a fête, and oddly, not being scared.
I remember driving over the border from Spain to France in a fully loaded car as we left our 2 and a half year adventure.
I remember hitching with a man in Ireland and telling him the exact spot we’d be swimming in the Shannon later that evening.
I remember McCutchens shoe shop standing with my feet in a machine - I looked in a window at the top and could see the bones in my feet.
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I remember when fridges had a tiny internal freezer.
I remember being afraid to walk over the cellar trapdoor of the Prince of Wales pub, in case it was unlocked and I fell in.
I remember being frightened of the gaps between the steps on the railway bridge and the steam as the engine passed underneath.
I remember one year Mum and I had indoor fireworks instead of proper ones. They were a series of grey sludge worms.
I remember arriving at Eurotunnel, exhausted and the instant we fell asleep as the train departed.
I remember taking the Eurostar to Paris with my six month old baby, a backpack and a travel cot on my shoulder.
I remember Sunday School excursions on the train to Portrush - as we boarded the train, we were given our lunch in a paper bag - it was for later but often eaten before we arrived at our destination.
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I remember chocolate Easter eggs melting as I sat on concrete. It was so hot that year.
I remember buying 1d worth of sweets in a poke. They were like eating gravel - why did I buy them?
I remember the muscular arms of Eric the blacksmith lifting me over the garden wall so I could play with my friend Lauren.
I remember leaving home with my dolls pram and being found by a policeman who bought me chocolate and pushed my pram home - and the smell of burning custard as my mum was so worried.
I remember the moment we first spoke, discussing a car. I knew it would be you.
Summer workshops
These are the workshops I have available this summer:
The Writer’s Notebook (Chequer Mead) block of five weeks starting on 8 June
The Friday Retreat (nr. Barcombe): 9 June and 7 July
Journalling Group (Chequer Mead): 16 May and 20 June
I am having a rethink on my Zoom workshops so if anyone would like to take part in a Zoom workshop, let me know what kind of format you think you might like.
Feel free to add your own ‘I remember…’ sentences in the comments below!
Until next time…
Mel
This newsletter was created by Mel Parks, a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Sussex, UK. Mel runs writing workshops locally and on Zoom and researches creativity in midlife as well as her personal connection to nature. She has been widely published and is currently working on a series of moon and plant-inspired essays.