Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Six word memoirs

There’s a “write a memoir in six words” meme going around and I decided to have a go. You may not be surprised to hear that I found six words a rather inadequate allowance.

(First attempts turned out rather gloomy) -

School, university, work, children, work, why?

Too busy to live life fully.

Tried best but have some regrets

Thinking breeds gloom; just kept going.

Worked; tidied; cuddled; worried, kept breathing.

Mother hen; chickens now spreading wings.


(Then I became a bit cheerier) -

Much love; many small pleasures; overwork.

Kept busy; less time to fret.

Married for love; who needs money?

(Make it more difficult; try alliteration) -

Lucky life; lots love; little leisure.

Fantastic family; fairly frenetic; feeling frazzled.

(A variation: alliteration in a pattern) -

Wonderful offspring; weary often; work overloaded.


(Is there a lesson in this?) –

Don’t teach: no life at all.

(But to sum up my memoir) –

All very interesting but too busy.

Six words? I need six million!

(Anyone else like to try this?)




9 comments:

  1. Excellent Isabelle! My absolute favorite is "Too busy to live life fully." That one's awesome -- and oh, so true for so many of us. And then there's "Married for love; who needs money?" -- my Mom's always telling us that she's sorry she told us to marry for love 'cause now we have to work LOL. And I must say, it's ever so much more fun to read your posts now that I can picture your adorable smiling face!

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  2. Poor Isabelle! Glad you looked on the bright side eventually!
    They're very good.

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  3. On my meagre knowledge of you, how about:

    worrier works, serves, survives, loves, thrives

    ?

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  4. I was just stopping by as I saw your comment posted on one of my blogging buddies' sites. I pondered the irony of your memoirs here and felt I had to comment.

    Despite your theme of being "too busy", you've still produced quite a prolific list of memoirs in, I'll bet, a remarkably short time.

    It reminds me of my friend, also an English professor, who also complains mightily to me of how busy he is with classes, papers, students, committee meetings--particularly now which is the end of the term.

    Yet we correspond frequently by e-mail and I'm always impressed at how quickly he can produce a fairly long, amusing, enlightening piece of correspondence. It must be that English profs can't repress their inner muse regardless of what else is going on.

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  5. You really do have a way with words. I also like the cheerier versions.

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  6. I tried to post this comment the other day but couldn't get blogger to accept it. Trying again today...
    Isabelle, you sound like you need a rest :) I think you did very well. A teacher's life must be very busy. Substituting is much easier...I rarely have to correct papers :)
    Thanks so much for naming the croton. I've had several other names provided too, so I edited that post and added them this afternoon. I fixed your link in the last post too because I noticed it didn't work.
    I smiled about you missing your blog anniversary. I had my second one in January, and sailed right by it without remembering until several weeks later. Time flies when we're having fun, doesn't it? :)

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  7. Always busy, but not really complaining.
    Life's not long enough for me.
    Not always fun, but definitely funny.
    One mate, three kids, great life.
    The final dirt nap solves everything.

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  8. I love the haiku-like feel of these. It's amazing how much of life one can cram into six words.

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