Nostalgia is usually a pleasant pastime of thinking fondly about past times. Normally the thinking is pleasant because we choose to be nostalgic about good times rather than bad times. But were those good times really as good as we remember them? Closely related to that (at least in my mind) is the writing of memoirs. I have heard memoirs described as “creative history”—that being due to the vagaries of memory plus a good measure of describing the subject days more as being what one would have liked them to be than what they were.

I have my own set of memories from former times and I have written a good bit about them in short pieces but so far I have resisted the writing of a memoir. There are a number of reasons for that. Except for a few amusing or more interesting incidents, my life was rather dull and ordinary. I cannot see a best seller emerging out of it. Then, too, my fondest memories are of peaceful times, quiet days of childhood in another era that I, at that time in my life, thought would last forever. Peaceful, quiet days don’t make good reading. Another reason is my reluctance to relate all the incidents of my life that, for one reason or another, are embarrassing to me. Those probably would make better stories but I ain’t gonna write ‘em.

So, for the present, I’m stuck with writing fiction, fantasy and a few essays. Inside those are hidden a lot of my personal experiences and relationships but that’s just the way I’d like them to stay—hidden. Perhaps one day that will change and, because of changing times or a change of mood, I will be motivated to write my memoirs. At that time I shall reveal to the world the details of my life and the secrets of my soul. At that time I shall go about creating the story of my life as I feel it really should have been.