Personal Narrative: In Order To Remember By Didion

First of all, I definitely relate to her story. I do have an impulse to write things down. I use to carry a small notebook around and write notes of various moments, observations, memories, whatever I fancy. Now I use my phone journal app and I use it all the time.
Why do I write it down? As Didion writes, “In order to remember.” Of course, it leaves the question, “what was it I wanted to remember?” I like to pull out those notes and think of stories I can write or try and figure out why I even wrote them. Often it doesn’t make sense, but I keep them anyway. Unfortunately, it’s all thinking and not enough writing and full of starts and stops with nothing in between. I’m always running on a quarter tank of gas and run out before I can reach
the end of a block or in this case a couple of pages. And for those like me, I think of note taking as the constant filling of a gas tank to the point it’s full and the story is complete. Regardless of what my notes say or don’t say and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense to anyone, but me. I’m the one that will pull out and create the story behind each note. That’s assuming there is a story to tell.
I like what Didion says, “Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearranges of things, anxious, malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.” I’ve found most of my note taking of memories I don’t want to forget revolve around growing up in Oakland.