What is memoring?

We all have some memories from our past that we consistently turn to. Many of these will be quite small things, like a game we used to play, or a particular bedspread we loved. Other times we'll have a memory that takes a bigger shape: say a particular event, conversation, or view that we won't forget. The stories we continually construct about our past return to these singular details.

Our memory writes over the many, many other things we have experienced with these singular things. And yet, important though they are, they are really only a fraction of our available experience. The process of memory is a normally a bit like a perspective painting which first covers over a canvas with oil and then in doing so divides the painted space into figure and ground, creating a fore- and background.

The object of memoring is to bring into focus those experiences that are in the background, or even to uncover the canvas; to remember what would be forgotten without the help of some stimulus. Much of what needs memoried will apparently be insignificant, but will be really meaningful once you recover it.

Memoring needs to work beyond memory, to counter its usual effects. Because of this, the best memorings are fundamentally creative and enriching in that they give events, feelings and sensations back to us.

My plan on this blog is to work on my own memoring, to try and develop good and better ways of memoring and to uncover as many memorings as I can.