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12:40 PM

Memoirs' of a Spartan Grunt

Introduction: the motives behind my writings

You may or may not have noticed, but I have a great passion for writing. and the best thing one can write about, is one's own life. Now, writing a memoir about my life is probably going to prove difficult at first. Like many people, I believe that I do not have anything worthwhile to write about. Atleast, that's what I thought when I first considered writing these memoirs. However, once I started looking back at my life, I quickly realized that, even though sometimes the major events tend to fade into the past. I have had many memorable events happen to me. So here I am with my ersatz quill packed chock full with my experiences, musings, travelogues, stories, my experiments with cooking, and all that I have learnt along the way, in the journey I like to call 'my life.'

Writing My Memoir: organizing the facts of my life

In this thread, we will be looking at both the past and present events of my life, as well as where I feel that my life will be heading if it continues on its present and future course. Writing my memoir promises to be an accomplishment that will give me a great sense of pride and joy, and one that I am more than glad to undergo. My first thoughts on the writing of this memoir, as stated previously, are that it may not be as easy to write as one would at first think it would be, but writing one's life story could help with the healing of the many traumatic events one may have come up against in one's life. So I am glad that I decided to write this memoir, and I hope you, the intrepid reader, will be, too.

(please remember that comments are not welcome in this thread, although, if you do feel the irresistible urge to have your say, please feel free to post thusly on my profile wall or in my chat thread/hangout Blurt TV thankies ��)

Chapter One

Quote:

"My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then."
Antony and Cleopatra Act 1, scene 5

The term 'Salad days' has probably generated as much confusion over the years as any phrase in Shakespeare's vast collection of works (except perhaps 'hoist with his own petard.') Some believe that 'salad' refers to the kind of meal one was once, in less lavish (or more diet-conscious) days, forced to subsist on. Others think of their 'salad days' as times of youthful innocence and indulgence, of brightly colored, freshly grown adventures. Personally, I am one of the latter, more nostalgic, readers of the bard's works. Thus I have coined the title of my first chapter;

My Green And Salad Days

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My first memory, is of sitting on the stoop of our prefabricated home in Battersea, South London. This memory is so vivid in my mind. It was the midst of summer, it always seemed to be summer when I was young, or perhaps my frazzled mind simply associates warm summer days with everything good that's happened to me in my life. my mum was busying herself inside sorting laundry, and had put both myself and my older brother out into the yard to pasture. In this it was not unlike any other day in the third year of my life, but what sticks out the most for me is that I was sitting in a pair of freshly pressed blue shorts (they were still warm from the iron and the crease was sharp enough to leave marks on the little boney kneecaps poking out from the hem), and I had a red bucket planted firmly on the top of my two and a half year old head. My mum remembers this day for completely different reasons than I, apparently for her it was the first time I counted up to ten un-coerced. but for me, it was the memory of my favourite red bucket, well, my only red bucket, which, for some still unbeknownst reason, had become my hat for a day.