Naushad Parpia on Family Stories That Stay With Us
Quick Summary: Family stories last when they're attached to ordinary things: a recipe, a saying, a storefront, a bus route, a photo in a drawer. Brooklyn writer Naushad Parpia's view is that memory lives in daily routine more than in big events. To keep these stories, write them down, record the people who tell them, and ask about the objects your family won't throw away. Most families have at least one sentence that has outlived the person who first said it. Maybe your grandmother muttered it while rolling dough, or your father said it every time you left the house. Years later you hear it come out of your own mouth, and for a second you're back in that kitchen or standing in that doorway. These stories almost never arrive as a neat narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. They come in pieces, like a smell or a chipped cup nobody is allowed to throw away. We pick these pieces up without meaning to, and over time they shape our sense of where we come from. Those pi...