“Exercise 9: Free writing a memory. Choose a moment you don’t remember well and free write about it in the present tense. Any memory fragment will do. Here are a few memory sparkers if you don’t have one in mind: your earliest memory, an embarrassing moment, an experience that took your breath away, your first kiss.”
-from the book Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer
I really like how her toes curl around the bench she’s sitting on. They look a lot like what I think my toes will look like when I get older. She is exactly what I hope I look like when I grow up. I wonder what the name of her cat is? I wonder if she knows who I am? I wonder if she lives in my neighborhood?
Do you think she’s nice? I think she smells good and gives really good hugs. When I’m a grownup, I want to live in a house like that. With windows that go all the way to the ceiling and a chair that attaches to it. I like to look at this picture on the front of Daddy’s record album because it makes me feel happy and safe, just like her music and my house.
A Grace Full Life 
I loved that album, too. It definitely brings back memories. A group of my friends would play it and practice our cartwheels and try to master a flip.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a good album from beginning to end. I like that you have good memories of it as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
💗💗
LikeLiked by 1 person
Xoxo
LikeLiked by 1 person
My parents buy a stereo, which is surprising and exciting. We are not a music family. Sometimes I listen to the radio on a tinny-sounding transistor, but a stereo! Once they buy a stereo, they need to buy records, and my favorite is Tapestry. I don’t know what a tapestry is or why the pretty woman’s is unraveling, but I love her voice and always put her face at the front of the nifty album holder they bought, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really like how you wrote this in the present tense.
Carole King was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which we saw on TV the other night. I told Mike that her album was the very first soundtrack to my current life. I recall every song on that album, and listening to them brought back a flood of memories. Then next morning, when I read Tristine’s prompt, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is essentially all I write about – outside of blogging, since I’m writing a memoir. My earliest memory is when I flashed neighbor boys who were standing on our front porch outside our long living room window talking to my older sisters. I’d just gotten out of the bath. I was wearing a bathrobe. Guessing I wanted attention, and I was annoyed that they were talking to my sisters. I got in BIG trouble. So many life lessons all wrapped up into one there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is something I could see myself doing at that age.
How is your memoir coming along?
LikeLike
Ha, kindred spirits.
So much of the memoir is written. I read chapters maybe once a month when my turn pops up at my writing group. When it’s my turn to read, I edit the heck out of my chapters – so it spurs me on. Without having full time to work on it though, makes for a long process.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It takes a lot of time and effort to write a book. It’s great that you have a writing group to bounce ideas off of.
LikeLike
Oooh, I love Carole King! When I was a kid I wanted one of those window seats so badly. It hasn’t happened…yet!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Doesn’t it look cozy? I’d love to have one to sit on as I read my books. 🙂
LikeLike
I love this so much.
I too wanted a window seat. And a cat. A cat in a window seat. How perfect is that?
My mom worked as a waitress and the restaurant had a jukebox. When the records were switched out, Mom brought home the old ones. I always had the best 45’s to listen to and I was one of the only kids who knew the B side as well as the A-side. I think in my mind, that made me kind of cool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I love that your mom brought the records home with her! Because my dad has an incredible collection of 45’s, I am also familiar with the B sides of many albums. That makes you a very cool person in my book. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I certainly DO feel cool now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
Loved that album, the music and CK’s hair which looked like mine at the time. Loved her cat, too. She was/is an inspiration.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When we were watching her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on TV the other night, she acknowledged being a hermit now, and I felt even more connected to her. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person