That's why I put the Cesare Pavese quotation at the beginning: "We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten."
I found this image on the internet and it seemed to capture the way the door opened to my past as I was writing. As I wrote I was sometimes surprised at how wrong I was about when some things had happened. I had associated memories with events, but when I researched the events, what I was remembering hadn't happened then, it had happened at another time. While checking the dates I would come across other events that I had forgotten were happening at that time. They were part of the memory and I needed to put them in to create the context for who I was and what I was doing.
I was lucky to be writing about a time that I really enjoyed and that meant a lot to me. Going back through the years and years of memories was mostly fun, although the frustration and the sadness I experienced then was often difficult to revisit. Even after all these years, I cry when I see news footage of JFK being shot and of demonstrations where billy clubs are crashing on people's heads. And when I think of my sister. We would have had so much fun sharing these memories.
