A couple of years ago I had a go at writing down my childhood memories. When I was more than half way through I stopped as I began to wonder whether my narrative was too dark, too depressing or even self-pitying. The last thing I wanted was people to feel sorry for me after reading my story. I just had reached a point in my life where I needed to understand why I felt so rootless.
As a child I asked my grandmother and aunt, who both meant a great deal to me, a lot of questions about my ancestors, my parents, basically everyone I grew up with, dead or alive. And I still remember everything I was told, up to this day. By writing down everything I remembered it helped me understand that my problems originated in my parents’ problems and their parents’ problems, who survived two world wars and lost a lot in the fire …
The problem was that some of the people I wrote about are still alive and despite the fact I never wrote anything malignant about them I feared they might feel offended and hurt. I am still intrigued in portraying my memories though and I believe doing so by illustrating them might do the trick. It’s less heavy and personal, a lighter way to express hard feelings, even sadness.
It’s fun, too! This image below turned out exactly the way I had been carrying it around for years in my head. My half sister (the blond girl) once told me about this incident: my father won a car at poker one night. When he returned in the morning he took us for a picknick in the countryside - in our new family car, which unfortunately turned out to be a hearse. What an absurde idea. But this picture means a lot to me. It captures one of the very few memories I have of my father.
