Every beginning is difficult, especially when writing texts and especially when telling about your own experiences.

 

While we can easily find the beginning of our stories in conversations, when writing we have to think carefully about what we actually want to tell and why. This is the most difficult part of the whole process.

What we want to talk about results from the images and films that keep rising in front of our inner eyes.

Very few people want to tell their entire life story over and over again or write a detailed autobiography.

It's usually anecdotes, scenarios typical of the time and family, formative events and experiences and the like that keep coming to mind when we sit down and talk with family or friends.

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A classic memory that many people from Christian countries carry with them is, for example, the memory of childhood Christmas.

But of course there is much more: the school days, the rituals and iron laws in the parental home, the lifestyle, the formation, course and end of friendships, experiences and adventures when traveling, at the start of a career, in professional life...., illnesses, life crises..., life patterns, that keep repeating...

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All these personal memories also contain information about the respective time and the spirit of the time. And that too needs to be worked out.

So we decided long ago which memories are worth telling. It's mostly the stories that we often tell at every suitable opportunity. But it can also be memories that often rise up in us, but that we don't share with anyone. For whatever reason.

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Another question is why we keep remembering these events and experiences and feel compelled to talk about them or are emotionally affected by them and start thinking.

Maybe we marvel at the development of the world or we laugh at ourselves in another time.

Perhaps these memories also throw a spotlight on individual formative experiences whose significance for our lives has not yet been fully clarified. It's kind of a hunch in the background that this singular or repetitive ritual or pattern was somehow important to us.

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Our experiences from decades ago are often a contrast to the present world. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But it doesn't matter. The difference is what is interesting, is the information that is to be passed on.

But the opposite is also exciting. According to the motto, "Some things never change!", Memories can make us aware of patterns and amaze us or even resign us.

But biographical stories should of course primarily have an entertainment value, but also an analytical and an informative aspect.

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Step 1 What memory does a story contain?

In fact, every memory carries a biographical story within itself. This is an assertion that I would like to illustrate with examples.

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An example:

I have an American friend who was born like me in 1953 and who keeps telling me that as a child she had to learn to swim in the lake in the wind, weather and cold. Every day in summer! Each of the four siblings! Just not during a thunderstorm! She shares how much she hated it, but also how good she thinks it was in hindsight. She tells of the experiences, paints a picture of shivering children and the strict rule of the middle-class, tradition-conscious family home. It transitions to the daily trips to school, to the school, to the children's chores... Essentially leads to the parenting style of middle class America in the 1950s.

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And I listen and am amazed to find that although we belong to the same age group, we experienced a completely different childhood. The credo of her childhood was a sense of duty, the credo of my childhood was sportiness and consumption. I find that very exciting.

This memory of learning to swim is actually a loose thread. When you pull it, you get a biographical story about a childhood in America in the 1950's.

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Another example:

A friend who was born in East Germany in 1952 keeps telling us how she got the scar on her eyebrow. She walked into a swing when she was about five years old.

For years I didn't know the story behind it. She ran into the swing because she was running away from something in a wild panic. The reason for this was that a caregiver invited her into the building of a day nursery. But she only accompanied her mother to pick up her little brother, who, as the youngest child, had to spend his first three years in this childcare center in the GDR week after week, like she had before. How might she have experienced this time in the day nursery that she reacted in such panic? What is it about the weekly crèches and education in general in the GDR?

Do you recognize the story behind this memory?

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The example scenario:

For this guide to biographical story writing, I chose a theme that I'm sure many will be familiar with: Christmas

I keep telling people that the festival of peace and love in my childhood wasn't very peaceful. Mainly my mother caused stress and Christmas spirit in equal measure.

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My memories are of Christmas Eves, when Santa Claus brings presents three times, when I make sure that no one is offended because I didn't appreciate the gift, when my mother cries because everything is too much for her...

My Christmas memories clearly contain one or even several biographical stories.

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Step 2 How do I start?

There are different entry options and different questions.

-I could describe an excerpt from a particularly beautiful, funny or ghastly memory of a Christmas in the past: When my son was three years old, we waited for the Christ Child and sang, "...then I'll put the plate out, Niklaus definitely put something on it...". At this point, my son shrieked, "Don't put the plate out! Don't put the plate out!” “Yes, why not?” I asked him in amazement. "The pirate ship doesn't fit on it!", he howled quite desperately....

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-I could ask myself what the magic of Christmas is for us adults, even though we don't believe in Santa Claus or the Christ child.

My daughter-in-law is Thai and has been celebrating Christmas in 2021 with our family for six years. This year, for the first time, she asked what makes Christmas so important to us. We told her about the religious origins of the festival, but that no longer has any meaning for any of us. So what is it then that made her husband always so sad and homesick back in Thailand on December 24th? We came to the conclusion that it is the childhood memories of wondrous, mystical Christmases that we want to relive again and again. ...

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I could tell you that today my family and I, although we are all adults, reenact the rituals of our childhood year after year. We are five adults, three of them almost 70 years old and two 40 year olds, but four of us sit in the kitchen every Christmas Eve and wait for the Christkindl bell to ring in the Christmas room and we can go in...

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-I could think about what people actually celebrate at Christmas these days. Most only vaguely remember the religious background of the festival.

When the corona pandemic raged in December 2020 and 2021, politicians and virologists urgently urged contact restrictions so that Christmas could be celebrated as usual with the larger family. That's obviously how important Christmas is to Christians. But why? Active Christians or even really believers are probably the fewest. That's why Santa Claus replaced the Christ Child. Santa Claus stands for gifts and is an invention of CocaCola, the Christkind stands for the baby Jesus in the manger. Does anyone still go to Christmas mass, originally the highlight of Christmas? I think what is celebrated today is the memories...

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-I could tell you about a funny or sad or messed up Christmas in the recent past. It was the Christmas of the cursing Santa Claus. We, the two seniors of the family and the adult son, yes even the dog, waited in front of the door for the senior of the family to light the candles on the tree and ring the bell and we were allowed to enter. This ritual was repeated year after year and we performed our Christmas play. But instead of ringing bells, the Christmas room sounded several times: "Kick my ass! Yes, what a shit!” We looked at each other blankly! ..... When we were allowed to enter, "Silent Night..." sounded, but only three candles were burning on the quite lush tree. Nobody had thought of buying candlesticks. Our roaring laughter was sure to be heard as far away as Christ Child or Santa Claus at the North Pole.

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-I could describe what I feel when I sing "Silent Night..." today, in contrast to my childhood, namely nothing, except that I don't hit the note.

The lights in the church go out. Only the candles on the Christmas tree shine. It's quiet, people are preparing themselves mentally for what is to come. The organ begins and the people begin: "Silent night, holy night, everyone is asleep, lonely is awake...". I too, still a child at the time, fervently sing along to all the verses by heart. Sixty years later, a similar scenario takes place in the living room and the family sings "Silent Night..." and I also take part in the singing. However, there is no longer any talk of fervor. I try in vain to find the right tone and hope that it will be over soon. This song has lost its magic for me...

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-I could quote someone who said something funny, wise... about Christmas. "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to cherish it throughout the year" (quote Charles Dickens). It seems to me that every person who experienced Christmas as a child keeps that memory in their hearts not just for a year but for a lifetime. ...

As you can see, there are countless ways of entering a topic, a story from your life.

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-I have chosen to describe a scenario that takes place today, with a child of the year 2021. Beginning of the story: The youngest member of my circle of friends, 3-year-old Bobby, is bursting with excitement while waiting for Santa Claus. And then, on the evening of December 24, 2021, salvation comes in the form of lights on the Christmas tree and gifts underneath. Wishes come true and you even get toys that you didn't want at all. The whole family is excited. Everyone unwraps something and is honestly or theatrically surprised. There is good food and sweets and everyone seems happy and content to the sounds of Christmas.

That will shape Bobby's memory of Christmas, year after year.

Transition to my memory: My childhood Christmas memories are more than 60 years ago, in the 50s and 60s. The excitement and fever of Christmas Eve, when the Christkindl comes, was also wonderful in my childhood, but apart from that there were small but subtle differences.

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Step 3 From the general or generally valid of the time ...

Which rituals, which legends, which feelings, which mood, which thoughts, ideas, living conditions, attitudes, traditions, customs ... prevailed in my childhood in relation to this topic?

This step is about describing and describing the time and the zeitgeist, that which is familiar to everyone of the same age, in which one's own experiences are embedded. And maybe one recognizes an external or internal change, a small or big difference to the present.

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Christmas was mystical for me, because the Christ Child came to us children in the 1950s. Nobody really knew who it was and what it looked like. A mix of baby Jesus and angel? The tale went that it would come flying, conveniently through the window, and quickly put the presents under the Christmas tree. When curious children looked through the keyhole in front of the door of the Christmas room, which was usually the living room or in our case the kitchen, to catch a glimpse of the Christ child, they took the presents back with them. A very bad threat. That's why I pinched my eyes tightly while waiting for the Christkindl so that I didn't accidentally see the Christkindl.

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At least as a kindergarten child, you had already seen the Christkindl a long time ago. At the nativity play that every self-respecting kindergarten put on. There lay the newborn Christkindl in the form of a baby doll or wax figure in the manger and was called Jesuskind. Christmas was a Christian festival in Bavaria in the 1950s. The search for shelter by Mary and Joseph as well as the birth of Jesus in the stable and the adoration by the shepherds, the appearance of the Star of Bethlehem and the visit of the three kings from the Orient Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar became an annual play for parents and children in the kindergarten , staged in school and in church. Almost every child could get a role. If the acting talent wasn't enough for Maria and Josef, then at least for ox and donkey. At least they didn't have to learn any lines.

A child became so aware of the meaning of the festival. It was the birthday of the baby Jesus and on birthdays you get presents, in this case, so to speak, on behalf of Jesus.

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There was no Santa Claus who gave out presents for no reason at all and didn't even ask if you'd earned them by being good. St. Nicholas in particular, who roamed the streets with his servant Rupprecht on the evening of December 5th, attached great importance to the assurance that one had been good throughout the year and had not given in to weaknesses such as excessive use of pacifiers or food crises. Witnesses were even questioned in the family circle, because Knecht Rupprecht kept preparing to put children in the sack he had brought with him. Whereas Santa Claus was willing to hand out lots of candy once he was convinced. This bearded man with a bishop's hat was the harbinger of the Christkindl. He could be seen and touched, feared and loved, and at times he bore a striking resemblance to an uncle or a family friend. Most of the time, however, he put his gifts in front of the door and rang the bell, just when dad had just gone down to the cellar to get a beer.

Yes, those were the fascinating mysterious Christmas legends of my childhood. Is there a conclusive legend about Santa Claus from the North Pole? I dont know.

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Step 4 … to the special (core of the story) or individual at that time.

View of the concrete, typical, individual experience in one's own childhood from the child's naive perspective

But then, as now, the lowest common denominator of Christmas was and is: a family celebration!

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Even my rather argumentative family tried their best to keep something like Christmas peace, which led to some strange rituals.

In the early years of my life, I remember that the Christkindl came three times on Christmas Eve. It was practically mainly concerned with me and my gifts.

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When it was just getting dark, the assembled family would send me out of my maternal grandmother's kitchen-living room and into the freezing cold bedroom, because the adults had heard the angels ringing softly outside the window, accompanying the Christkindl. Lo and behold, the bell rang shortly afterwards, the radio played "Silent Night, Holy Night...", the candles on the wonderfully decorated Christmas tree shone, sparklers, which are forbidden nowadays, gave off sparks, it smelled of pine needles, wax and sparklers and I almost had it I forgot in amazement and awe that there was a toy under the tree for me. When I had recovered from the shock and really wanted to start playing, everything had to be packed up because I had to head for the next station two doors down.

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At my grandparents' on my father's side, the Christkindl had arrived before me, because while we were still on the way up to Grandma and Grandpa's on the first floor, "Silent Night, Holy Night..." sounded through the hallway again. And again the Christmas tree was shining and sparks were flying in the eat-in kitchen. Again there were toys and this time clothes underneath and it smelled like candles and pine needles. I was appropriately amazed again, but no longer as surprised, and hoped that I might be able to play a bit.

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But no! As before, everything was packed up again and we drove home to the apartment that my parents and I shared more or less only on the weekends. In the early years of my life, my father did assembly work during the week and my mother worked as a saleswoman from morning to night. So I lived with my grandma. But at Christmas we were actually together in our apartment and there was the ultimate last gift. This time we were faster than the Christ Child on site. But my parents had this sixth sense that it was bound to happen soon. Lo and behold, "Silent Night, Holy Night...", candles and sparklers on the tree, presents under the tree. All well-known rituals were repeated. A third time, however, I couldn't bring myself to be overly amazed. But it was nice that I could now play in peace and eat sweets. My mother had a gift for making beautiful lavish Christmas plates and she also took the trouble to hang cookies, colorful fondant and chocolate stars in the tree. It was like paradise for me.

One can now rightly ask why this Christmas marathon was organized in my family during my toddler phase. I can only explain it like this.

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Step 5 Explanation and background

Actors appear in the world of memories who are special characters, but also children of their time with their own story and their own perspective on what is happening.

The societal and the historical background form the framework of the scenario.

It is therefore usually necessary and helpful if the most important actors and their relationships are characterized and the historical background is described as contemporary colour.

However, you should be careful not to digress and start a new story, so to speak.

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My mother and, in the background, the competition between her and her mother-in-law play a role in my Christmas memory. The color of the time is reflected in the working world of a textile saleswoman and in the consumer frenzy of the 1950s and 1960s. Photographs support this information more clearly than descriptions.

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Omniscient first-person narrator from today's perspective: My mother was a textile saleswoman in a clothing store and therefore had to work until 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve. In the previous four weeks of Advent the Saturdays had been so-called "Long Saturdays". This meant that the shops were open until 6 p.m. six days a week. In the 1950s and 1960s, shops usually had to close at midday on Saturdays. It was only allowed to be open until evening once a month. But at Christmas, people should have enough time to shop as much as they could. Oh you happy consumer world! But the sellers had to cope with the shopping madness of the years of the economic boom. They stayed in the shops until the bitter end, in this case until the early afternoon of December 24, serving stressed Christmas gift buyers at the last minute. Today, the opening hours are greatly extended throughout the year due to shift work. Back then, the exceptional Christmas situation was simply part of the job.

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So while my father and I spent time with my grandparents and got into the spirit of Christmas with cookies, stollen and storytelling, my mother sold shirts, ties and socks that were destined to go under the Christmas tree. So we were all very relaxed and in happy anticipation and then my mother came! Restlessness and stress on two legs! She could have left the organization of Christmas Eve to one of the grandmothers, but that wasn't in her nature. For better or for worse, she now wanted to stage the ideal Christmas celebration with peace and bright children's eyes according to her ideas. But everyone else didn't want to be bothered and wanted to do their own thing. So it happened that I had to do the finest Christmas hopping. That was exciting and the Christmas of this time is a magical memory. In one of these Christmas kitchens there were sausages with sauerkraut and Schwarzer-Kipferl (special crusty rolls from the Schwarzer bakery) and then punch for the adults. I can't remember exactly where that was, because I didn't give a damn. The main thing is Christmas!

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But there was another reason for this triple Christmas special: jealousy! The two poles who repelled each other were my mother and her mother-in-law, that is, my grandmother on my father's side. While my mother tried to put herself and her own mother, who actually just wanted to relax and enjoy her peace, in the foreground of the Christmas theatre, my other grandmother immediately and relentlessly complained about being neglected. It was important to her that her gifts to me were associated with her, that she could exclusively enjoy the bright children's eyes and that the ambience was designed according to her ideas.

There was therefore only one solution to preserve the Christmas peace, namely separate Christmases.

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A few years later, when I was around 9 or 10 years old, in the beginning of the 1960s, the Christmas peace was often not in good order. My parents now own a modern three-room apartment with a living room. Therefore, all grandparents met with us on Christmas Eve. No more Christmas hopping! But my mother was still in sales and would come home in the afternoon exhausted and exhausted. Actually, she needed rest first. But the cheerful grandparents also trundled in almost at the same time as she did. Everyone was now expecting a peaceful and harmonious Christmas atmosphere, which stressed my mother even more. Certain tensions were smoldering there! But my mother always managed to complete the whole Christmas program. The scandal usually came after the gifts were given. Obviously the jealous ladies had been stalking each other to see if there was any reason to be jealous. Jealous of better gifts, jealous of the joy of another grandma's gift, jealous of something.

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I have learned, if possible, to show the same joy with every gift, to turn on the sparkle in my eyes, to find words of appreciation, to look at every gift for the same amount of time and to treat it with care. I also listened with interest to my grandmother's explanations of the quality and cost of her gifts, and declared that I was very glad that my trousseau could now be supplemented with splendid linens, the value of which I could appreciate very well.

Well, peace before sincerity!

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Step 6 Completion of the biographical story

The end of a biographical story can be designed in very different ways.

-One could mentally jump to the present day and describe differences as well as similarities.

Today, gifts only play a secondary role in my family. The most important thing for us is being together and celebrating good food for days. ….

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-Provoke

In 2020 and 2021, the pre-Christmas period was severely restricted due to the corona pandemic. There were no Christmas markets and concerts and few Christmas parties. There was practically no preparation during Advent for the actual festival. That's when I noticed for the first time that during the Advent season there weren't any choirs singing Christmas carols on Sundays after the news for a long time. I used to love that and now I don't even miss it. Could you do away with Christmas altogether and introduce a longer winter sale instead?

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-Lessons learned from one's own childhood experiences

My childhood experiences with Christmas meant that there was only one present for my son in our home, that the Christ Child brought everything...

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- Wishes for the future and critical remarks

I wish the spirit of Christmas hadn't been lost.....(No moral finger pointing!!)

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-Later and present traditions: I have experienced many very different Christmases in the meantime. When I was a student and lived in a shared apartment, we celebrated without a Christmas tree, but with a Christmas goose colliding while playing cards. Of course, when my son was little, the magical Christmas spirits revived. Later I spent many a Christmas party alone, but that didn't bother me much. My now adult son, who lived in Asia for a few years, remembers that his heart always got heavy at Christmas and he would have liked to be with his parents, as there are father, stepmother and mother. That's how it is today. We have our own rituals that are quite international. There is a Bavarian Christmas Eve with sausages and potato salad as well as presents under the Christmas tree, which the Christ Child has brought according to tradition. On Christmas Day, in good old American tradition, we plunder our Christmas stockings filled with little things in our dressing gowns and the American stepmother and I cook the American turkey menu all day, which we then eat in the evening. And finally, for the past six years, our Thai daughter-in-law has been cooking something Thai on Boxing Day.

We are all huge fans of our international Christmas celebration.

These examples are only suggestions and do not claim to be complete.

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It is only important that this part of the text is much shorter in relation to steps 4 and 5, so that a new story is not created. If the memories bubble up, you can conceive another biographical story, possibly with a different focus.

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It is important for writing and also for reading that you don't pack everything, every detail, every marginal phenomenon... in one story. In this case, having the courage to leave gaps does not mean that you leave something out, but that you might place it at the center of another story.

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Note on alternatives:

Building a biographical story in six steps is one of many storytelling possibilities. It is especially memories of everyday life, customs, ... that you can write in such an entertaining way.

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-One can also chronologically tell of a constantly repeating pattern in life by only describing episodes in which this pattern comes into play.

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-You can also tell about a crisis and a turning point in life. In such a case it could

-the crisis is at the beginning of history (1),

-the way there (2) would be described in retrospects and

- the exit (3) from the crisis would have to follow,

-before one judges what is happening from today's perspective (4).

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All of these suggestions are clues, perhaps a scaffold, that the narrator needs to adapt to his or her memory.

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It would be best if you read through some of our stories under the aspects mentioned here. You might come up with completely new ideas for telling your biographical story.

We would appreciate it.

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We are available via email for questions and requests for feedback on rememberrelatereflect@gmail.com, always at your disposal.