I recently completed a memoire titled The Diplomat's Son. Writing it was an extraordinary experience.
I dropped off a cliff into a sea of memories and quickly discovered drowning was necessary. Writing a memoire of my life walking behind my father as he followed a diplomatic career became a discourse on memory itself.
What is real? What is not? What is truth? What are shades of memories?
I remember things. I remember people. I remember conversations. But what do I remember? Is what I remember a form of the self constructed to survive the truth of some of those memories?
As you hack you way through the forest of memory things turn on you, things twist, unexpected paths open. Dare I walk there? Is it real? Will it kill me?
In the end I surrender to the memories themselves. For whatever reason, my memories tell my story. There is no exactitude required. They live in me for whatever purpose they serve.