The Book of Pathetic Me

"The Book of Me Written by You" is a project I first saw on Geneabloggers, devised by the inspired Julie Goucher of Anglers Rest. It's a natural for genealogists who dwell mainly in the past. We should thank Julie: Shame on us if we forget our own biographies, neglect attention to our own lives because who knows us better than us? How could a third party possibly get it right??

This is important work. The assumption is that the scribblings will satisfy an intensely curious future someone (not happening now, is it). Not that we are compelled to make just every old thing public.

Image by Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers

Regarding the serial prompts, this writer has already fallen behind Julie's schedule. Regarding the personal history, I began it long ago and then skittered sideways when it became problematic. Problematic means how confessional are you going to be. You know, in case your kids get their hands on it before you actually die. Besides, other projects hopscotch the order of precedence with distractions always leading from one thing to another.

Take now for example, multi-tasking Book of Me along with breakfast preparation, no, it's more like lunch time, thinking calcium and fibre, where are the radishes, and attending to the laundry upstairs but on my way out the door CBC radio plays "Jerusalem!" so needs must halt and joyously deliver word for word (it's a Pavlovian thing: wherever I am when the opening chords sound, a thousand days of morning hymns at boarding school kick in) which then reminds me I wanted to look up William Blake designs for another project, write that down in the daytimer, why is that plant on my shelf looking brown, reach the laundry room only to catch an unavoidably socially-interactive moment with the local hypochondriac, then to quickly fold some of that same laundry so it doesn't get horridly wrinkled, making the bed at the same time somehow goes with it, better vacuum up those popcorn bits, discard yesterday's scattered reading material, ...

Good lord. Is that who I am? Where were we?

I had to scroll down AnglersRest for Prompt One, Who Am I? (posted 31 August). OK, tick off everything on that list. No: correction. Delete tea drinker, chocolate lover, and Alfie whoever he is. On second thought, that must be who Julie is. Let's add camel chaser. Is that good enough? Maybe the defining of oneself should begin with a blank page (like my head goes when I run across anything that smacks of mathematics numbers). I can see Prompt Four will appear before I properly get over this one.

Next. Prompt Two, My Birth (posted 7 September). My birth. That's a good one. Truthfully, I don't remember a thing. Everything from birth to ca. two years and ten months old is a blur, deeply hidden in the neurological recesses. Julie did a terrific job on hers. This must be the hardest part. No baby book courtesy of Mom. Besides, can we trust mothers to tell the truth? Sure, she was an original source with primary information but was she conscious the entire time? How much credibility do we give the Arthur Janov school of thought?

This is quite tiring so far. Definitely more work to do. Good thing it's a long way till we get to my problematic parts. Up the flag and carry on, Julie.

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman