CLICK!

September 23, 2021

How does your family CLICK?

When they were age 5 to about 10, my daughters were fans of the Cam Jansen easy-reader series of books by David A. Adler. Cam is a fifth-grader with a photographic memory; all she has to do is say "Click!" and whatever she sees is stored in her brain in perfect detail. My girls were inspired by Cam: When they saw something they wanted to remember, they'd frame their visual field into a rectangle with their fingers, peer through, and say "Click!" (Madison, who couldn't yet say the K sound, said "TLIT" until she was about 6. It was adorable!)

Our memories tell us who we are. But only eidetic memory geniuses like Cam Jansen can keep track of everything on their own; the rest of us need technological assistance or it dissolves pretty quickly. So we rely on more permanent records like photographs, journals, letters, and prompts from Facebook that point out that you no longer look the way you did 6 years ago. I'm glad our technology lets us easily capture the important moments in our lives, but just having these devices isn't enough; we actually have to use them in a way that makes it all permanent. Of course, living through the pandemic has been awful for everyone, but we still do want to preserve those memories... if nothing else, it will help future generations understand what it meant to live during these times. It's a story!

My colleague June Santini, whose granddaughter appears in the photo above, is an enthusiastic scrapbooker. But you don't need to acquire a new talent to chronicle our present for their future. If your passion is writing, start a journal for each child: Just jot down notes regularly about what they are up to. (My own experience says that it's easiest if you have a different journal for each child.) Are you good at the visual arts? Draw or paint your child at different stages through their lives. Have them draw or paint YOU, too. Do you keep lists? That's a great way to preserve the bits of life that are important to you today. If you live behind a video camera or microphone, channel your inner Johnny or Ellen and snag your family for regular short interviews. If you and your kids love to sing, make up songs together about your lives. Be sure to record them on your phone (and then somewhere more permanent!) or write them down with the date.

Everyone CLICKS (or TLITS) in their own way, and you might as well make it easy and fun and right for you. Now's the time to start; it doesn't matter how old your kids or grandkids are! You got this.

—Deb