The Stitch

In the early 1990s I lost my box of memories. It was a standard cardboard box filled with photographs of friends, relatives and pets I had loved, letters from boyfriends as far back as eighth grade. I kept it stored in the basement of the house I was living in at the time, and one night I came home from work to find the basement entirely flooded and my box of memories had become flotsam, bobbing with the pulse of the sump pump.

I lost 25 years of my life in that one moment. I lost the only tangible record of my life until that point in time. What would be passed on to my children and on to their children? How would they remember me? How would they remember the people I knew, or understand the things I had done in my lifetime?

Shortly after the loss of my memory box, I purchased a digital camera and a computer. Written letters morphed into email. Pictures printed on Kodak paper were now stored in fragile hard drives - all of which suffered meltdowns of one variety or another - and all of the meltdowns resulted in further loss of my memories.

Only since the birth of my daughter have I begun to take steps to record my history and my life. And only now do I realize what a dangerous position we've put ourselves in. I save all digital images on my computer, on disks and on a remote server somewhere in cyberland, and have each image printed out on photographic paper.

Regretfully I still use email as a major method of communication. I want to change this. I want to go back to the old ways and start sending real letters, so that someday my life can be sold on eBay. At least that way someone will remember me after I'm gone and the children of my children are gone as well.

This generation of computer geniuses and professional bloggers is at risk of losing their entire lives to history. Sure, we've got census reports and records to show we existed - but what about the tangible artifacts? The tokens of life that get handed down from generation to generation, or are shipped to the eBay auction block for ephemera junkies like me to bid on and hoard like a greedy child. Letters, pictures, sketches and locks of hair - they seem to be relics from the past.

Our diaries are now blogs. And we feel secure storing these delicate tales in a booklet kept open only by the almighty dollar. Once we stop paying for the blogging time and space, our memories disappear forever. Ten years from now, after we've lost another ten years to the frailty of technology, we'll wonder "What were we thinking, trusting our lives to this method of preservation?"

I own collections of the memories of other people. I keep the faded yellow letters in velvet-wrapped boxes and I read them on nights when I'm regretting the loss of my own auctionable memorabilia. I thumb through their photographs and wonder if they knew how well they were preserving their lives by simply putting pen to paper and posting these messages through time.

We're losing these precious pieces of history. We're sending emails by the thousands every day, only to have them clicked into the oblivion of "deleted files." We shoot pictures by the thousands and with the flick of a finger we save them to folders named "Christmas 05" and a year later, after we've forgotten back-up copies, they're lost when the computer crashes during the "Christmas 06" celebration. A careless splash of champagne, a fried hard drive and in seconds of sparks and flames, a whole year is lost forever. No paper copies in albums to flip through, no memories to share snuggled around the fireplace with a glass of fancy wine.

Letter writing has become a dying, if not dead art. Our paper pictures are being lost to a digital generation. We're not real. We're leaving nothing for the future to hold in their hands. We're leaving only census reports to show for our existence. It's not enough.

This worries me greatly, and I desperately want to change this sad reality. I want our memories preserved and put down on paper for others to read about for, not just decades, but centuries. We need to start writing - but not just writing, preserving. Is there a way to do this? I think so. I think we each need to choose one or two people, then send them a letter and a photograph each week, or even one letter a month. Vividly describe the events that have unfolded since the last message. When you receive each of these treasures, tie them with a satin ribbon and keep them forever. Someday people will want to read them - and if not, you can sell them on eBay, to people like me, who will devour every word, savoring every delicious, timeless sentence, and place them in a velvet-wrapped box for the next person to enjoy.

Peace, 'til next.