Memoir and Amnesia - and Self-Doubt

These days I'm writing about my earliest memories, my family and life in Bay Village Ohio.  I just decided to begin at the beginning, after a bit of preparatory jumping around.  It's hard, but even as I write this I'm not sure why.  Let me try some explanations.

I have very few clear memories before the age of ten.  I have snapshots, occasional remarks.  I have my baby book and a record of my school performance, so I have some jogs for my memory, but I don't have detailed visual memories.  And the memoir books and teachers tell me I need them.  So I'm trying to call them up, knowing that sometimes I'm likely making things up (they say that's OK, memory is unreliable anyway, just don't manufacture stories and lie), but mostly I hit these walls.  For example, I want to tell you about my older brother Dal.  Dal is - was? - almost eleven years older than me.  He left home when I was seven, and only visited occasionally after that.  I don't have a lot of memories of Dal.  But Dal is important, to me and to my story.  So how do I write about Dal?  How do I tell you what matters?

So the first voice says:  other people remember their childhoods.  Have you blanked out all those years in response to the incest and other trauma of those years?  If so, how can you write about this?  You're a mess.  You need to remember.

Here's where the other voice kicks in.  The problem is not that I can't remember, this voice says.  The problem is with my expectation that I need to, and that there's one sort of memoir - full of details - that others want to read.

So my memory issue is actually related to the question of what kind of writer I am.  I keep trying to measure up, to have lots of details and conversations, when really I'm more an idea and impression kind of person.  I'm an essayist trying to be a memoirist.  I used to be an academic writer who wanted to write essays.  Now I can write anything I want, and I'm making rules to make things hard on myself!

I have lots of ideas.  I live in ideas.  You know that, if you've been reading my other posts for a while.  I love ideas.  But I do want to convey the texture of my life as well as my reflections on it.  So: I think I'll listen to the second voice.

I promise this week to post some of what I've written.  I have a lot about Bay Village, where we lived from 1955 to 1966.  I'll figure out how to share some of that.  Thanks for checking in here.  Back in a bit!