Introducing: Present Harmony

When I started my 60T🖤60 Project, I gave myself the goal to hold the book I was writing in my hands on my 60th birthday. My daughter then encouraged me to release some of the pressure by commiting to holding my first draft in my hands rather than what I felt was the perfectly finished book.

In 2019 when I started my Revive55 Project, I thought I might write a book about preserving memories, but what I realized was that I was as passionate about chasing dreams as about memories. I wondered whether to have two separate books. My tagline on my website and my newsletters was "chasing dreams...capturing memories". 

What I found was that in the present, we travel back in time to remember happy moments from the past and travel forward in time to plan future memories we’ll want to capture. Although the moments were in the past, the act of remembering happens in the present. Although we dream of the future, the act of dreaming happens now. The present is when and where the magic happens. When our future dreams become reality, they will happen in the present. Our future will become our present.

Present was my word of the year in 2022 and Harmony was my word of the year for 2023 and 2024. I loved putting them together for my book title. We find harmony in the present moment by looking back at our best moments in the past and dreaming of ideal moments in the future. This balancing of looking back and looking forward brings peace and harmony as we live our lives in a way that values our most meaningful dreams and memories. 

The chapters cover the following topics:

1. Knowing ourselves. Who we were; who we are and who we intend to be.
2. Understanding what and why we remember certain things and not others.
3. Envisioning our dreams and how to make them happen.
4. The power of serendipity, synchronicity, the law of attraction and manifestation.
5. The highlights and what I learned about memories during my Revive55 Project.
6. The importance of creating space and the struggle with letting go.
7. Reviving our most meaningful and treasured memories.
8. Connecting moments that weave together to become more meaningful.
9. Embracing technology as a mindset for memory keeping.
10. The importance of focusing on the present.
11. My focus during my 60T🖤60 Project.

I share my journey and what I have learned over the years of researching, teaching and writing about memories, chasing dreams and the importance of the present moment. My hope is that something will resonate with those who read it; and it will inspire them to balance past memories and future dreams to achieve present harmony.

Letting Go of Books

I started this blog post last October but didn't finish it. As I am decluttering more books this weekend, I thought I'd see if I could finish it and maybe add some insight that I didn't have at that time.

As I go through my bookcases, which were overflowing into boxes, the criteria I'm using is whether I:

Let Go

• a book that is easily accessible in the future - so a classic that won't disappear
• a book I loved but will not want to re-read. Whether it's too sad or an interest that isn't one anymore
• useful info that I keep reading and re-reading about - decluttering, productivity, procrastination...how many of these do I need and will I re-read them? 
• informative books that I made summary notes from
• books I wished I wanted to read
• books I wished my kids wanted to read

Keep

• a book about a passion, like travel - I will continue to want to travel, so I love keeping my travel books; especially if I wrote notes in them
• useful info I will want in the future - like my favourite parenting books I'll want to refer to when I'm a grandmother
• rare books like my hometown books that can't be repurchased
• books that may inspire a new idea some day...

 "A Clearing Realization: 

There were books that I didn’t need few years ago but had an intuition to keep.  

for example today .. I had the urge to take few books from my library, and put them together, magically out of nowhere, they spurred a spark of inspiration for a new project for my next book. Suddenly I realized why I kept them. 

The same goes to some pieces of clothes, that may not fit together with my wardrobe at a previous stage. But now after many clearing processes for my wardrobe, it fit perfectly well. 

Listen to your intuition and inspiration when you are clearing. Feel the spark and the inspiration that few items give you, still don’t have logical reason why. Trust your inspiration."

*******

That's what I wrote in October. The last quote is probably from the book Simple Abundance. It sounds like that author. I'm disappointed that I didn't reference it in my draft. I will add the reference when I find it.

As I continued to declutter my books in the past few days, I find it interesting to not have listened to my previous advice.

For example, I got rid of travel books!!! 😲 

I am wanting to create more and more space in my house and I realized that I don't need to keep so many books. I took a photo of the notes insde my travel books - and luckily I wrote notes at the back of the book and not throughout so the notes are saved and the book can be enjoyed by someone else.

Last fall I kept this book. 

It's not easy to find. It's no longer available at Indigo. The author came to our Moms' group and she signed my copy. I scanned the cover and her signature. I would love for someone else to read this book and enjoy it like I did, rather than it sit on my shelf because I met her and she signed it. The photo will remind me in case I want to re-read it in a decade or two. It is available at the library and maybe will return to the book store.

Another book I was keeping was because it was a gift from my husband. I love the film and loved the book. Why not share the love. Why keep an amazing book on my shelf unread for years (obviously I had read it, but then it was sitting there being unread).

Although I scanned the note, I cut out the page and filed it in my chronological Memories folder. Maybe that's a better place for the note than inside the book.

I had been keeping books for decades having read them. Do we keep them to show how "smart" we are and to show that we read all these books. I have lived in this house for almost 25 years. It's not getting any bigger. I also feel that sharing a book shares the knowledge, passion and love. That has been a big mindshift for me. As the years pass and my love of reading continues, I shouldn't keep all the books I read - even if I love them and even if they have memories. 

The memories are not in the physical books. The memories are in my mind and in my heart.

Time is the Most Unforgiving of Fires

I wrote a blog post in 2008 after reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. You can read that original post by clicking here.

It was inspired by a quote in the book:

(to give some perspective, the passage describes how Laila feels after her first love Tarik tells her that he and his family are moving away)

"In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory, what happened next. Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could—a look, a whisper, a moan—to salvage from perishing, to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn’t, in the end, save it all. "

I think that the author really describes it perfectly: "like an art lover running out of a burning museum"; "time is the most unforgiving of fires".

It's interesting to reflect on how I felt over a decade ago:

"Memories: something very close to my heart. I have realized that so many of my memories are forgotten. Perhaps that is why I take so many photos, to help me remember. I sometimes think that I’m too busy taking photos rather than really experiencing the moments so I have tried to curtail my photo-taking."

Interestingly, a month after that post, we bought a Digital SLR and our photo-taking increased exponentially. A couple of years later, I would get my first iPhone and then I had a camera with me wherever I went.

In one way, I love that so much of my life was documented with photographs, but like I would reflect then I didn't keep up with the journaling in photo albums.

"I am often told that I have such a good memory about my kids... but I kept a great journal during those times (and journaled in my photo albums). When I look through my photo albums from my childhood and university years (when I didn’t [journal]), I’m amazed how much I forgot."

With the increase in digital photos, I stopped printing photos and putting them in albums for many years. The great thing though is that although I may have been in the minority who was journaling in albums 10-20 years ago, most of us have been "journaling" in the last decade by posting on social media.

We have preserved many memories on Facebook so why not enjoy them? As the quote says, "time is the most unforgiving of fires". I sometimes see old posts and think "I had forgotten that!" By seeing the post, we are reminded of these moments that were important enough to share at the time.

Sometimes you will receive notifications from Facebook of memories from this day, but you can see them yourself every day by going to Facebook.com/memories when you are signed in to your account.

TimeHop is an app that you can connect to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see your posts from on this day. You can also link your photos so every day you can go to this app to see your memories from "on this day".

If you want to see memories from a day other than today, you can quickly go to a specific month and year on Facebook. When you're on your profile page, go to your activity log. Click on filter to choose your posts (rather than all activity) then choose the year and date.

While making my photobooks, I take screen captures of my posts or copy/paste the words to add journaling to my pages. You can also make photobooks on your phone from Facebook posts if you prefer to look through your memories in a book.

We remember our memories better when we relive them. 

A photo is not always worth a thousand words. We can ensure our memories don't fade by adding journaling to our photos to remind us of details that aren't obvious from the photo.

One last point, do you have your photos ready to be rescued in case of disaster whether that is a burning house, flood or technical crash of your computer or phone? As great as it is to have memories saved on Facebook, understand that the quality of the photos is diminished and you don't know how long that website will exist.

Book I 💙: The Art of Making Memories

There's a quote I've read that says "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear". I had this kind of experience recently.

When I started the Revive55 Project, I searched for books, websites and podcasts to learn as much as I could about preserving memories. I found a few and have been reading and listening since.

I already knew a lot about making photo albums from my years as a Creative Memories Consultant. I wanted to learn even more though.

I recognized that digital photography and social media changed the way we make, share and preserve our memories. I wanted to spend the 55 weeks learning and updating the way I used to preserve memories and recognize which memories were the most meaningful.

I am just realizing that the story I'm going to share begins Thanksgiving weekend. I am so thankful for this story so I love that I opened an email from Indigo on Thanksgiving Sunday. I rarely click on regular emails from them but for some reason, I did that day. In the email it didn't show a book I was interested in but for some reason, I clicked on it anyway. Scrolling down through the list of bestselling books, I saw this one:

Coincidence? Serendipity? I immediately walked to Indigo to pick it up. It is EXACTLY what the Revive55 Project is all about. 

When I started reading it, I was a little sad in a way because I read about things that I had thought of using as my own in my posts. On the super positive side however, it is saving me SO much time because the book has all the scientific research to back everything up.

As excited as I was to be reading it, I was trying to slow myself down because I wanted to savour it. A week later, I received an email from a friend who thought of me when she received an inviration to an event coming up in Toronto.

Ten days after I bought the book, the author would be in Toronto!

Why is Meik Wiking in Toronto promoting his book? I couldn't believe my luck. Not only had I found a book that would improve my Revive55 Project but I would get to hear the author speak.

I devoured the book before the event and absolutely loved it! It was above and beyond what I had been searching for.

The timing couldn't have been better. I had already written quite a bit of ideas of where I wanted the Revive55 Project to go. I already had thought of many of the things in the book, so I don't feel like I would be copying what was in the book. It came early enough in the process though that it has changed how I see some things. I really feel like I took a huge leap forward by reading the book.

After his talk, I got to meet Meik. I told him that I believe that I will remember reading his book as a before and after moment. My Revive55 Project before reading his book will be different to the project after reading The Art of Making Memories.

Meik Wiking may not actually be my teacher, but reading his book has been very educational for me. 

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in making and preserving memories.