Start with what you can remember

Don't begin by searching for what you've forgotten.

Begin with something you know you remember.

Perhaps it is the house where you grew up.

Your first job.

A particular teacher.

The car your parents drove.

A holiday.

A friend you haven't seen for years.

Stay with that memory for a little while.

What else was around it?

Who was there?

What happened before?

What happened afterwards?

Sometimes the edges of one memory contain the beginning of another.

Follow the people

People can become pathways through our memories.

Think of someone who was once part of your everyday life.

A parent.

A grandparent.

A brother or sister.

A childhood friend.

A neighbour.

A teacher.

Someone you worked beside.

Instead of trying to remember everything about them, remember one moment.

Where were you?

What were they doing?

What did they usually say?

What made them laugh?

What did it feel like to be around them?

One person may lead you to a place, another person, and a story you had not thought about for years.

Return to the places

Sometimes we remember our lives through where they happened.

Picture a place you once knew well.

Your childhood bedroom.

A grandparent's house.

A classroom.

A workplace.

A favourite café.

A garden.

A street you walked every day.

Move through it slowly in your mind.

Where was the door?

What could you see from the window?

What was on the walls?

Where did people sit?

What happened there?

You may discover that you remember far more than the place itself.

Let photographs open the door

Choose an old photograph.

Don't begin by asking whether you remember the date.

Look at everything around the photograph instead.

Who took it?

Where were you?

What were you wearing?

What happened before the photograph was taken?

What happened afterwards?

Who else was there but outside the frame?

What can you remember that the photograph cannot show?

Sometimes the photograph is not the memory.

It is simply the doorway to it.

Remember through the senses

Not every memory begins with an event.

Sometimes it begins with a sound.

A smell.

A taste.

The feel of something in your hands.

The music that played in a particular room.

The smell of someone's cooking.

The sound of a gate closing.

The fabric of an old chair.

Rain against a window.

A familiar perfume.

You don't need to explain why something stayed with you.

Follow where it takes you.

Remember the ordinary routines

Important events are often easier to remember because we have photographs, dates, and other people reminding us of them.

Ordinary life can be harder.

Try remembering the shape of an ordinary day.

What happened when you woke up?

What did you eat for breakfast?

How did you get to school or work?

Who did you usually see?

What happened when you came home?

What did evenings look like?

What happened on Sundays?

Where did everyone gather?

Routine can reveal memories that individual events do not.

Use objects as reminders

Sometimes an object carries more of a story than we realize.

An old watch.

A recipe book.

A piece of jewellery.

A tool.

A postcard.

A record.

A piece of furniture.

Something that has been kept in a drawer for years.

Ask yourself:

Where did it come from?

Who used it?

Where was it kept?

Why was it kept?

What else do I remember when I hold or look at it?

The object does not have to be valuable.

Its value may simply be that it remembers something with you.

Talk with someone who was there

Memory does not always have to happen alone.

A brother may remember something you have forgotten.

A childhood friend may remember a name.

A cousin may remember what happened after the part of the story you know.

You may remember the same event differently.

That's all right.

You are not trying to reconstruct a perfect record.

Sometimes another person's memory simply gives your own somewhere new to look.

Follow the unexpected memory

You may begin trying to remember one thing and find yourself thinking about something completely different.

Follow it.

A photograph of your father may remind you of his car.

The car may remind you of a journey.

The journey may remind you of a restaurant.

The restaurant may remind you of something your sister said.

That may become the story.

Memory does not have to travel in a straight line.

Don't force what isn't there

Some memories may not return.

Others may remain incomplete.

You might remember the room but not why you were there.

The face but not the name.

The conversation but not when it happened.

You don't need to fill in what you don't know.

You can simply write:

I can't remember exactly when this happened.

Or:

I remember the place more clearly than the day.

An incomplete memory can still be a memory worth keeping.

Write something down when it arrives

Memories sometimes appear when we aren't looking for them.

While driving.

Cooking.

Listening to music.

Looking through a cupboard.

Talking with someone.

You don't need to write the whole story immediately.

Write down enough to find it again.

A name.

A place.

A sentence.

A few words.

Grandpa's shed — smell of sawdust — red toolbox.

That may be enough.

You can return later.

One memory can wake another

You may never remember everything.

You don't need to.

Begin with something that is still there.

Stay with it for a moment.

Notice the people around it.

The place.

The sounds.

The things that happened nearby.

Write down whatever returns.

Then see where it leads.

One memory can wake another.