Her answer here was something I see myself in too, believing an older sibling more than your own memories. This again made me think of the quote from Oliver Sacks.

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As I was editing and re-listening to these interviews, I realised that people often talk about a house when they talk about their childhood. I never noticed until now, but whenever I, or family members of mine tell stories, they always refer to a house. Because it is easier for us to relate a memory to a place. It serves as a reminder of the time period or year whenever that memory happened.

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According to Gaston Bachelard the experience of the space is directly linked to memory. The passing of time is difficult to remember, so using a place or a house as a reference point somewhat helps our memory to keep track of a timeline. Memory in that sense is more related to place rather than time. Bachelard says that the psyche works in such a way that an understanding of events is related to the memories of places where they took place and what meaning they acquire. He called this topoanalysis. “Thanks to the house, a great many of our memories are housed, and if the house is a bit elaborate, if it has a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated.” (Bachelard, 1958/1964, p. 8)

 

 

My places...

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                                                                                          Dronten

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                  Montaigut- le-Blanc (Rue de l'eglise)

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                                                                                           Fumay

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                                St-Vrain (Allée des glycines, l'Orme de la prévôté)

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                                                                Puits d'Havenat (Route des forets)

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      Maaike on the 12th of April

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Going into details concerning houses is difficult as it is hard to remember.
You remember the feeling of walking up the stairs and maybe specifics, like turning on the light switch. In the end, the memories surrounding space or a house are generally the big picture and layout of the house.

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Throughout these talks some of the theories that have been discussed in the previous chapter came to mind.

Wanting to see for myself how accurate the theories of Bartlett, Benjamin and Bachelard would be, I decided to create a survey as well as doing interviews with a few individuals.

With the only question: “Could you tell me a non-fiction story from your life” I asked a small group of participants from all over the world and in turn received anecdotes from their lives. This reminded me of the anecdotes that I read in the book "Why life speeds up as you get older" by Draaisma. Similar, yet very different stories.

By asking this group to tell me a story or write it to me I often got the same response: “Oh I wouldn’t know what to tell you, I don’t have any stories”
Noticing that some were hesitant or thought too hard about it. Of course, the subject of stories is so broad, but by keeping my question vague I wanted to find out what kind of stories they would generally go towards. Keeping the previously mentioned theories in mind, I expected that every participant would have a story from their youth, perhaps traumatizing moments. I was a little surprised by the stories I received.

 

Following are the stories from the survey, most in English and some are in Dutch. I did not want to translate them, as to not alter the sentiment of the stories.

 

A story about a sister saving her brother

Mijn broer en ik (ik was een jaar of 15, mijn broer 10) waren aan het schaatsen. Helaas was er een zwakke plek in het ijs, mijn broer zakte erdoor. Ik wilde hem redden uiteraard en stak hem heldhaftig de hoes van mijn schaats toe. Daarbij roepend ”Pak mijn hoes, pak mijn hoes!”. Maar ja; van 1,5 meter afstand had dat natuurlijk geen enkele zin. Gelukkig was er een meneer in de buurt die mijn broer wel uit het ijs kon krijgen. Gered!! Tot op de dag van vandaag zie ik het nog zo voor me, en zal deze anekdote ook nog regelmatig verteld worden. Zus redt broer!

(F) 63, Netherlands

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A story about a man at the door

Man aan de deur. In mijn kinderjaren kwamen er behoorlijk wat handelaren langs de deuren. De melkboer, de bakker, de groenteman, de (steen)kolenboer, de ‘garen-en-band’-man die verder vrijwel alle mogelijke huishoudelijke artikelen op zijn kar mee voerde, je hoefde er de deur niet voor uit. Ook voor het innen van betalingen kwam er iemand langs. Zo kwam ook de verzekeringsagent langs om zijn geld te halen.

Ik denk dat ik een jaar of 11 was en ik was met mijn moeder in de kamer toen de bel ging. Mijn twee broertjes waren samen aan het spelen en de oudste van 5 deed de deur open. Even bleef hij de man met open mond aankijken en riep toen zijn broertje erbij: “Edwardje, Edwardje, kom eens kijken! Er staat een man aan de deur die lijkt precies op een aap!” Mijn moeder en ik lagen achter de kamerdeur helemaal in een deuk. Maar er moest betaald worden en tja, toen was ík de pineut.

(F) 67, Netherlands

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A story about moving across countries

My story begins in the year 2008. I just moved to Singapore, from The Philippines, with the intention of staying for good. It was a good experience as I am going to be exposed to a whole new culture as I have never been to another country before. But as an eight-year-old child, it was a pretty stressful experience as it was an unknown environment for me. I knew that my life wouldn't be the same ever again. I was not a very sociable person, so making friends was kind of a struggle and thus I spent most of my time for the first 3 weeks alone when I started in Primary School. I was very timid, liked to keep things to myself and sometimes outspoken. This was my Fall but just like every good origin story, a Rise is inevitable and little did I know that it was sooner than I expected. Apparently, my mentor came up to me during recess to have a little chat. She asked me how I was doing as she had noticed that I was pretty much alone most of the time. I told her that I still felt very uneasy and have yet to adjust to the lifestyle, compared to The Philippines. She helped me to make new friends by introducing me directly to kids that would match my vibe and potentially gain some form of confidence in myself. Ever since that day, I began to slowly adjust myself to my new life in Singapore and I believe that who I am right now wouldn't have been possible without the help of my mentor. As that day sparked something in me to be able to grow, become stronger and capable to face my challenges ahead.

(M) 22, Singapore

 

 

A story to show how short life is
When I was working at the hardware store, I was an assistent manager. This was around 2018 or 2019. I have always been friendly with the customers, was good at costumer service and because of that I had regulars who would come in and only ask me for help. During that time, I met this really nice old man and his partner. They were the sweetest people you've ever met. Everyday they'd come in and genuinely only come in to talk to me and hang out with me. So a relationship grew and whenever they would drop by I would share snippets of my life. "Yeah I'm dating so-and-so, I have a car, I'm trying to do this-" And they'd always have a pleasant conversation with me. I remember one day he came up to me and asked "How I was doing financially?" I responded "Ah you know, helping my grandma, I'm doing this I'm doing that" and then the man went "Oh ok, well this is for you, because I know your birthday is coming up soon". The man then proceeded to give me an envelope and within the envelope there was a very sweet letter that read "I see you as my son, thank you for these conversations everyday" and inside was $100,- I thanked him, but wanted to decline the money offered to me. The man responded with a smile "No please no, take it and if you ever need anything, you let me know. I'll take care of you, I'll help you out"
The man came back to the store for a couple more times and then I did not see him for months. However, I did see his partner, so one day I walked up to him and asked "How is NAME HERE doing?" The man's partner said "I didn't know how to tell you this for a while, but he passed away recently" the man then explained how it had happened.
After that interaction I never saw that man again either.

(M) ±24, Florida (USA)

 

A story about a teacher in France

Ik ben leraar. Op een middelbare school. Dat moet je er tegenwoordig bij vertellen. Toen ik 32 jaar geleden begon was dat vanzelfsprekend: een leraar/lerares werkte in get middelbaar onderwijs, in het basisonderwijs was je onderwijzer/ onderwijzeres. Ik probeer kinderen van 12 tot 18 de basisbeginselen van de Franse taal bij te brengen. Misschien ook nog een beetje literatuur, maar dat wordt steeds minder. Hoewel we dat ook niet moeten zeggen. Het wordt anders, dat is de meest gehoorde term. De kinderen blijven hetzelfde in hun opstelling wat betreft school, het is een noodzakelijk kwaad . De meesten gaan niet met tegenzin baar school, maar vakantie is natuurlijk veel leuker. Ik snap dat volkomen, dat is bij mij ook niet veranderd sinds ik van in de klas naar voor de klas ben verhuisd. Misschien komt het omdat ik mijn oude school werk. De overgang van leerling naar leraar verliep overigens zonder problemen, mijn toenmalige docenten accepteerden me direct als één van hun, " zeg maar Henk hoor". Acht jaar studeren is ook een lange tussenpoos. Inmiddels zijn sommige oud-collega's goede vrienden en gaan we regelmatig met elkaar op vakantie, bij voorkeur naar Frankrijk, waar we zgn cycloculinaire weekjes met elkaar doorbrengen. Sinds ze met pensioen zijn wordt het wel steeds moeilijker om een gezamenlijke datum te vinden. Ze hebben het heel druk? Er wordt gefietst en goed gekookt. In Frankrijk is dat niet moeilijk. Voor de vriend die aankondigde dat hij vegetariër was geworden moesten we wel even slikken, maar aan kikkererwten is er geen gebrek, en het houdt de kookcreativiteit scherp. Het fietsen wordt wel minder nu, maar dat komt de gesprekken en het verhalen vertellen ten goede. De gesprekken gaan overal over, serieuze onderwerpen en flauwekul gaan hand in hand. Altijd in volledig respect voor elkaar en altijd zonder conflicten. Verhalen van bizarre situaties in de les doen het altijd goed, maar ook discussies over de actualiteit zijn boeiend.. "Of ik het niet vervelend vond om met die pensionado's op pad te zijn"?, vroeg er één, " jij moet maandag weer naar school immers?". Het antwoord is nee, driedubbel nee, deze weken maken dat ik juist weer energie krijg om aan het werk te gaan. Hoewel, soms ben ik een beetje jaloers op ze...

(M) 60, Netherlands

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A story about a story

Recently, we went to the Goudse schouwburg. We went to see comedian Martijn de Koning. He told a story about a friend, when he was about 12 years old. The father of his friend, was kind of an illusionist. He could turn a sixpack of beer into ...... severe domestic violence... Made us laugh, in spite of the sad reality..

(M) 61, Netherlands

 

A story about a high school incident

I was 14, in woodworking class, one of my favourite classes in high school. I was working at something at my table, when I felt something hit the back of my left leg. I looked down to see a 5mm width chisel on the ground, I looked up and a bunch of boys on the other side of the workshop were laughing to themselves, I took the chisel and placed it back on the racking and went back to work, about 5 minutes had passed when someone else in the class commented that I had blood on the back of my leg. so I left the classroom and went down to the front office to tell the nurses, they were very concerned by my lack of emotion, assuming I had gone into shock or something. My mum then came to pick me up I spent 4 hours waiting in the emergency room, the doctor wasn't very good at stitching up the wound. I got seven stitches, it should have been 13, at my request the boy who threw the chisel got suspended instead of expelled, and now I have a scar on the back of my left calf muscle.

(M) 31, Australia

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A story about a fire

Sunday the 9th of August, 2015 was the day that my world burned to the ground, literally. After spending the weekend spoiling my younger sister and playing video games with my father. I arrived back at my home only to see, that where my 2 story, family house had been, now stood a building that was boarded up at the windows and doors. The stairs had collapsed and there was glass littering the entire front yard. The moment I stepped out of the car, the smell of freshly burnt wood singed my nostrils. In that moment I knew it was gone. Everything. I stood there in shock for 5 maybe 10 minutes as the world rushed around me and what I had left to call a home. Suddenly I was sprung into a panic. Where were my siblings? Where was my mum? Had I really lost them too? In that moment I hear a car pull up behind my dad's and feel the trembling embrace of my mother. As she hugs me so tight, afraid that I was going to disappear and that when I knew everything would be okay.

(F) 20-25, Australia

 

The outcome of the survey was as expected, about half of the participants indeed told stories from their youth, however not always about something particularly traumatizing. Most of these stories were in settings that the storyteller were around 10 years old. Some of the remaining stories concerned moving and cultures and others talked about stories from work.
 

Comparing what type of stories are usually referred to when asked to tell a story and what kind of details are included and excluded was interesting to see in practice.

The entirety of this little experiment was to see about personal experience and to put the storyteller and the way we tell stories in the centre.

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5th of May 2022

In the end, gathering all these stories I decided to make a new short film including one of the first stories I recorded while preparing for this chapter.

"Papa, wil je mij een verhaal vertellen? / Dad, will you tell me a story?"

This new work can be found in Chapter V

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