Six Reasons to Make a Personal Scrapbook
Curating a visual record of your life story is not an egotistical exercise. It's a record of your existence and that you mattered.
When I told a friend I was making a personal scrapbook "to tell my side of the story," she looked at me like I had two heads. Telling my personal story in photos, writings, poems, and other memorabilia seemed strange to her and perhaps a bit of an ego trip. As I pondered her reaction, though, I realized there were other reasons why a personal scrapbook would be important.
Tell Your Children Who You Are:
I was lucky to listen to my parents’ stories about their families, childhood experiences, and their own fears and dreams while growing up. I was fascinated, in fact; but my own daughter seemed far less interested in my past. What’s to know? Her generation is all about the future, thinking the past is too ugly and oppressive.
That’s to be expected of young people as they strive to build their own lives. Later on, there may come a time when she’ll want to know more about her ancestors. There will certainly be surprises. Did her gray-haired, stodgy parents once march in a peace rally or tramp around Europe with the rest of the hippies? Did “the ‘rents” do anything similar to what she is doing now? Or were they always just gray and stodgy?
Our stories, augmented with photos, postcards, and other memorabilia, are much more private and permanent than a website. The Internet is so ephemeral, precious photos and biographies can disappear. By the time our children want to learn about us as people, we may be gone and the opportunity will be lost. To sit with them, enlarging the stories recorded in the scrapbook, is time to be cherished as well. It's a way to connect the dots of heritage.
Tell Your Side of the Story:
You know how people are at funerals and reunions - how stories differ depending on who's telling them. Arguments have spiced up many a family gathering this way. Do you want to trust your story to relatives and friends whose views of who you are may be skewed? Family legends can suffer when details are warped by faulty memories or interpretations of events. So, it's wise to tell your own story.
All of us have incidents where we feel we’ve been misunderstood. Making a personal scrapbook with journal entries of some kind gives us the opportunity to tell our side of the story. What possessed us to make that particular decision? Why did we treat someone a certain way or how did we feel about their treatment of us?
Whether our behavior was fair or unwise is not so important as stating your case. Family myths can leave negative legacies if not explained fully. Your point of view can enlighten those who face consequences due to your actions. Have you ever been judged or denied something because of a relative's reputation? Your part in family mythology may affect how others reach their goals. Once understood, you may inspire future generations.
Tell the Back Stories Behind the Data:
Every family harbors mysteries. Some can only be read between the lines of public documents. Most of us will wonder what a certain document meant to a person’s life. Knowing historical background fills in reasons why our progenitors fought in a war or migrated from ancestral lands. Explaining your own place in history will deepen your story, putting your face on an important event or era.
The most helpful discoveries I made while researching my ancestors were diaries or journals. I could read that person’s account of their Crossing to America, or why they worked on a crazy project. Reading about how they were caught up in major events or social movements fleshes out our relatives as real people with dreams, failures, accomplishments, and hardships. These elements made them who they were. These days, people are analyzing the strength of genetic trauma when connecting with their ancestors. Making a personal scrapbook with detailed photo captions explains your life to anyone searching for answers to personal dilemmas.
Tell How You Influenced Others:
You will find reminders of events and people you’ve forgotten. You'll get a sense of how your life followed a course, sometimes a circuitous one, to where you are now. Looking back will give you a perspective on your influence.
You may not realize how many people you have affected, for better or worse. Scrapbooks can show how much you learned from others, but also you may be surprised at how much you’ve helped others, too. These reminders may set you back on a track. You may be inspired to renew an old interest or friendship. If you’re in a funk about life, a scrapbook will display your accomplishments.
Possibly one of the best reasons for making a personal scrapbook is that you will gain a better sense of “selfhood.” As we age, we acquire a lot of identifiers: someone’s parent, spouse, sibling, and so forth. Women especially get lost in this complicated network and long to re-establish their personhood. If you're the one recording family activities, for example, you will become invisible. A scrapbook will prove you existed and mattered.
Tell Your Stories Before They Fade Away:
A personal record of your life will come in handy when you suffer from dementia and need to remember who you are. Your children, who don't know all the details, will learn about you if the scrapbook evokes memories. These, of course, can morph into fractious fictions. Detailed entries can help everyone understand you more clearly.
Tell Your Story to the World:
If you're a writer, artist, or performer, your life story is your stock in trade. I've discovered that my scrapbook is a valuable tool, not just an egocentric exercise. Many of my posts on Substack require a peek into my scrapbooks. Photos from those pages make their way to those posts, too. By sharing my stories, readers can discover how much alike or different we are from each other. Similar struggles bring us together. Epiphanies teach us all how to approach common problems with new solutions.
Of course, scrapbooks need to be updated occasionally. That brings more surprises as you watch the growth occurring in your life. Your scrapbook is an organic being that changes as you reach self-actualization.
I have recently found to my delight that comparing a photo of me as a child to one of a grandchild has produced a joyful reaction from my daughter. She has finally reached that age where she wants to connect the dots between generations. Mom is no longer an annoying stranger. I'm a person going through similar life lessons.
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to explore other writings in the Ring Around the Basin Archive. I also love to read your comments, so please share your thoughts. Let’s start a conversation. And if you wish to support my writings, please consider subscribing or upgrading to a paid subscription. It’s now only $50/year. Even better, I would appreciate it if you could share Ring Around the Basin with your friends. Thank you!
All my books, Paradise Ridge, When the Horses Come and Go, and Ghost in the Forest are currently available on Kindle. Ghost in the Forest, is also available in paperback. Paradise Ridge is out-of-print, but the Kindle version is re-edited and better quality.
Book Review of Ghost in the Forest:
"Ghost in The Forest' is a great read! Take note People. If you love stories about environmentalism and nature, its clash with urban mindsets, as well as personal transformation, this is the book for you!
"Ghost in The Forest" is a quick 126-page read. It's the story of Dori, a woman trapped in a mix of grief over parental loss and refusing to accept how her hometown and her friends have changed over the years. Because of this, Dori has become a recluse and a self-imposed misanthrope who finds more comfort amongst the hiking trails around her hometown of Morristown than in her dealings with the raw reality of other humans.
The book, in some ways, resembled Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” in that the story follows a protagonist's love of nature and angst about humans encroaching on it. In this case, it’s how Morristown is transforming into a mountain biking destination where cyclists run rampant on trails and nature.
However, a tragedy involving said mountain biking becomes a major pivot point for Dori, leading to a series of events that eventually bring about personal evolution and discovery.
If you're a nature lover, this book is a must-read. It beautifully portrays the clash between environmentalism and urban mindsets and the journey of personal transformation. The book's vivid descriptions of nature and the protagonist's love for it will surely intrigue you.
Paradise Ridge Review by western author D. B. Jackson:
If you draw circle roughly around an area that includes northern Nevada, southern Oregon, and southern Idaho, within that circle exists a culture and people who live a lifestyle largely untouched by modern values. These are the "buckaroos" and Basque characters author Sue Cauhape brings to life in her literary novel, "Paradise Ridge".
Leandro, the illegitimate seventh son of patriarch Xavier Arriaga and his mistress, Gisela, is at the center of this intriguing story that travels exceedingly successfully at both the personal level of the characters, as well as the compelling level where the story is told.
Cauhape writes in a literary style that reminds me of Annie Poulx. Paradise Ridge, on the surface, appears to be an upscale Western novel...once inside the pages, you will soon discover a potential classic waiting to be discovered.
I rated this book a 5...because that's all the stars there were.
You make a very compelling case here, Sue. Things I had not thought about. I doubt I will be creating scrapbooks, but for my son, I leave three things: A full ancestry ( which took a year out of my life to research), my writings about grandma Katy's life, and a small hand-made, hand-written book titled Memories of My Son, which is something I continue to add to - just brief memories of our life together. So I am covering a few bases. And I highly encourage others to follow suit. Thanks for this post, my friend.
I love this! I have scrapbooks of my childhood years which are filled with art and writing. I also have boxes of my kids’ art and writing as well as a box of mementos from my adulthood that I plan to someday finish putting into scrapbooks. The problem is there’s quite a bit to sort through and I get so lost in just looking at everything—so progress is slow. Thanks for the motivation!