“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
I’ve been thinking a lot about my Grandparents lately. Maybe because throughout my childhood, it was at this time of year that I would pack a case and visit them with my Dad and sister for two whole weeks of fun.
Maybe it’s just because I’m at a point in my life when I’m feeling more sentimental – or that I’m searching for some writing inspiration. Either way, it brings back a whole host of feelings and emotions.
They lived in a small village called Felpham, on the south coast of England. It had a row of shops, three pubs, a golf course, cornfields and a beach. Every year in July we’d spend two whole weeks playing on the beach, visiting nearby castles and building tents in the back of my Granddad’s garden – which was huge, with apple trees, the most wonderful smelling flowers and a vegetable patch which had runner beans growing so high, to us it was a jungle.
For writers, drawing on memories can provide great material. Just one recollection not only evokes different sights, sounds, smells and sensations but a variety of feelings – of happiness, anger, sadness, regret or even guilt. Conversely, the smell of something familiar or glancing at an old photo can bring years-old memories to the surface.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days – when summer went on forever, where life was so innocent and in one afternoon you could go on so many different adventures and never have to leave the garden.
With memory being such a powerful thing, I’m thinking about a future writing project. It’ll be about a girl who spends the summer with her grandparents and will be littered with fond memories and sentimentality; maybe even some adventure.
They say write from the heart – so where better to find some inspiration that the back of our minds?
What memories would you use for inspiration?
Pens and Paperbacks. 