I was always amazed by
personal stories tell by people I have never met in my life, and no matter how my
experience may differ from theirs, are able through its contents to make me
feel close and connected. This is exactly what I got from reading this book.
Occasional Writers show people from different walks of life, lawyers, teachers,
homemakers, and others who carried different memories in their hearts while
meeting at the same place, with the same goal—to bring the past forward. Based
in Charleston, Illinois, the memoir group called Past/Forward wrote short stories,
poems, words through which they preserved and shared their memories, and words
through which a reader is reminded of many reasons why we laugh, why we cry,
why we cherish some experience more than others, and why people come into and
leave out our lives. We can read from a first date in the childhood to a marriage
proposal, adored father, some beautiful moments from a grandmother’s life and
many others. This book proves that behind every life is a story, and Occasional
Writers might actually inspire others to write their own. It certainly inspired
me, as one of the poems in the book goes: I
wish, I wish, I wish, that I could write just one more poem. Past cannot be changed; we can only
change its role in our lives. Every moment is destined to become past and many
of us, just as people who wrote Occasional Writers, have those moments that we
want always to remember.
