Portraying Memories

 The memoirs Becoming Michelle Obama and Why be happy when you could be normal are very interesting takes on both author's personal experiences growing up. They give the reader a better insight on how specific instances in their lives, big or small, changed who they were as people. In Becoming Michelle Obama, she writes about her experience at Princeton and how her memories there made her feel. She mentions how certain moments affected her life such as meeting people from the other side of the world, her boyfriend Kevin, and working hard in school. She was a very determined woman who didn't understand why others weren’t as motivated as her for success. I got the feeling of nostalgia while reading her memoir as she talked about some of her good memories during her college years. The next memoir Why be happy when you can be normal is mainly written about her family's personal lives and how the author was affected while living in a toxic household. She was adopted by a not so loving mother and expresses how even through a tough childhood, she got through it eventually. She mentions her struggles on how it was growing up poor and not being able to even afford small things such as the bus, and how she adapted to this lifestyle. Even though this author had mainly sad memories, it was interesting to read about how she never let them get to her and reminded me that no matter how bad you think your life is, someone always has it worse. I find it intriguing to read about how even though both authors came from different backgrounds and have their fair share of good and bad memories, they both were determined to succeed, not letting their bad memories hold them back.

My favorite quote from The Art of the Memoir is “Memory is a pinball machine- it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you've heard. Then the machine goes tilt and snaps off. But most of the time, we keep memories packed away.” I like this quote because I find that it does a great job of describing the “lifespan” of a memory. It states how memories appear in our heads as many different snippets of images from impactful points in our lives. We eventually forget certain memories overtime which she expresses by comparing it to when “the machine goes tilt and snaps off.”