Scenes of a Life I Think Was Mine: Memoirs - Start Reading Here
In Which I Look Back At My Life
In which I look back at my life, and try to make sense (in public!) of some of the events that have made me who I am.
These pieces, and others yet to be written, may someday turn into an e-book memoir. Until then, they make up a memoir-in-parts, which may or may not tell a coherent story. Most likely not, since I doubt that many lives have a coherent story to tell. Making sense of anything, perhaps especially our lives, is probably the impossible dream - but seems like most of us still feel the need to try.
Here is a chronological index linking to the memoir pieces I’ve shared on Substack since I started Recollections, Reflections, Fictions, Fantasies in September, 2023. If you’ve been with me for a while, you may recognize some of them. But I’ve written and published them as they came to me, jumping back and forth over the decades, the way memory does. And they’ve come to me, been written, and gone out all jumbled together with lots of other pieces on other topics.
So this is my first effort to see if maybe they do tell that coherent story, a story without much of a plot, not a lot of action, all around pretty ordinary. Doesn’t that buildup leave you faunching to start clicking links below? (I hope so!)
1940s
1950s
Dust!
Yes, Even the Dry Turkey Breast
1960s
1970s
Return To the Locked Psych Ward
My Days of Faded Elegance: Life In the Hawthorne In the 1970s
Elizabeth Bishop Wrote Me Once
I Always Wanted To Be a Writer
On Seeing the Obituary Of a Passed Past Lover
1980s and after