Souvenirs and Memories

by Janis Patterson

As most of you know, I just returned from several weeks in Egypt and Jordan. Fascinating… and exhausting, but I’m covering that in the Trip Diary that will be on my website. What I’m going to talk about now is souvenirs. Souvenirs are something to remind you of what you did/saw… or to take home to friends and family so they will know where you went and what you did.

The Husband and I quit the souvenir train a long time ago – mostly. He always buys a few postcards and I usually pick up something small, like a refrigerator magnet. (Though I did buy a spectacular gold-embroidered dress in Cairo – have no idea where I will wear it in the foreseeable future, but I do know I couldn’t have left without out it.)

Back to souvenirs. Whether for us or for others ‘small’ is the operative word. We always try to travel light, especially on a ‘rough’ trip like this one, so space is limited. Plus, one must consider the egregious baggage charges the airlines are extorting from us. No space, no extra charges = small. Very small.

But… as pleasant as little trinkets can be, they are not necessary to life. All they really do is stimulate our memories and feelings of pleasant or adventuresome times, and we can call forth those memories on our own, because what is really important is the memory – not the trinket purchased there, though the trinkets are nice to have.

To drag this post to the business of writing, in a not-too-unusual way a well-crafted story is a souvenir – a memory that you might have not had yet, but once the story is read it stays with you forever. How many of us have favorite scenes, favorite stories, that always evoke a reaction within us? Isn’t that like how a souvenir can in the blink of a memory bring back sights and sounds and actions previously experienced? Just because it is not brightly colored or even physical doesn’t mean that it isn’t a sort of souvenir… an encapsulated memory.

That means I can forget small. I live in a house with four libraries, each simply bulging with books, most of which I have read. I can pick up almost any one of them and suddenly there is a memory, a feeling inspired by something in that book. A souvenir of a life – an event – a something that I might or might not have experienced in the flesh, but which still arouses not only a memory but an emotion in me… just like when I pick up the embroidered shawl my husband bought for me in a small shop in Petra, or the tiny terra cotta Mayan figure I found in Mexico, or… I could go on and on. Like you and probably everyone else on the planet I have more souvenirs and more memories than I can handle.

So… when you are writing your books, remember that you are not only creating a story, you are creating a souvenir of a life the reader never lived.