Focus on the Everyday

“I have so many fun things I’d rather be doing than writing a memoir,” a frustrated memoirist told me. “I want to have done it [the memoir], but I don’t want to spend a lot of time  on it.”

That got me thinking about narrowing the scope of a memoir to small, concrete details. It’s counter-intuitive, but sometimes the most mundane details are the most interesting. Your favorite meal when you were a child. Sayings your mother said often. How you used to spend your day. How you got around when you were a kid.

My grandmother,  Helen Jewett,  wrote in her autobiography that the day she and my grandfather got married, they caught an overnight train from Wichita, Kansas, to Thayer, Missouri. They got a flat tire on the way to Wichita and were so late, they almost missed the train.

A porter saw them, stopped the train, and said, “I was expecting you, but thought you’d decided to get on at the flag stop down the way.” They jumped on the train, all out of breath. The next day, they took the mail truck from Thayer to Thomasville, Missouri. 

What everyday detail to you remember fondly? Why don’t you put it on paper?