This morning I started reading Agatha Christie’s autobiography. In the forward, she offers some great reflections on writing about one’s own life. She always says this about remembering and the past:
the past, the memories and realities that are the bedrock of one’s present life, brought back suddenly by a scent, the shape of a hill, an old song—some triviality that makes one suddenly say ‘I remember…’ with a peculiar and quite unexplainable pleasure. This is one of the compensations that age brings, and certainly a very enjoyable one—to remember.
Christie