My Musings, not always daily

Oct 18

I read this weeks newsletter-Short Stories and responded to Shannon. I thought it an interesting reparte.





My response:





I was born in 1952 and when I turned 40 I got the itch to research my family tree. This


was before the availability of on line information that we have today. What I learned, or


rather observed, is we all think we are "NORMAL" There is nothing interesting


about our daily life that is different than anyone else in our era. Me included. I


wondered what the days were like in 1888-1920. What did THEY think about the war or the


political world around them? What were their thoughts of the future? I didn't learn a


lot as some notebooks and journals were destroyed by uncaring family members.


When I asked my grandmother what was invented in her lifetime, she said,


"Everything." I look at my life; I had an IBM compatible PC in the early


1980's and it was run on DOS. I had a microwave when they first came out. We had a


cell phone when it was a box as big as a car battery we carried around....Yet I think my


life so normal and boring who would want to know what I think?


What would I have to say that would be worth writing in a journal? I see blogs and wonder


unless you are the Pioneer Woman or my friend who has an interesting mind, what would I


write and who would care? Then I look at Face Book. We comment on things that are posted


now they are sent to cyberspace after a while. Maybe it is important to respond to a


comment, but what if we copied and pasted those comments every day? Would we have a


journal someone 50 years from now would want to read?





Shannon's response to me:





To answer your final question ... absolutely! My kids think it's hilarious when I tell them about 8-track tapes and Saturday morning cartoons (the only cartoons we had) and growing up without a phone and having to communicate with our neighbors via CB radio. Once the days you lived are gone they are interesting to anyone who didn't live them! And even those who DID live them right along with you (9/11, Katrina, Y2K, etc.) like to hear about them from someone else's perspective. Look at documentaries (my favorite film genre): people love them! We all like to connect with the protagonist, and how better to connect than by shared experience?





I am going to try to blog some daily things. What I got from a lady selling Homemade Journals at Wordstock, was a postcard with a list of things to put in a journal. What she said got my mind thinking. Here are a few I can remember as the card is elsewhere. Grocery lists (add prices or discount if you have them) music play list from your ipod, your favorite clothing, grocery, boutique store you shop at and why. A list of friends you talk to at least once or twice a week, month, year. How did you meet them? How do you remain friends. These are things that just never crossed my mind, but as I look at it these are the things about my past generations that I would want to know about their lives. They probably thought that information was just as uninteresting and boring as I think my life is.





What would you want to know if you could talk to your grandparents 4-6 generations ago?? That is what you should be journaling , not deep, profound thoughts (unless you have them) that you wait for years to think. Just start with a list that I gave above, add to it other things as they come along. In between the lists you might have some recipes you bought the items for, include those. It never hurts to write them a number of places.