The Preserve Your Past Podcast
Leaving a legacy with your powerful personal stories
Storytelling is a universal practice we use to pass along our memories to future generations. Whether or not you consider yourself a writer, everyone has a lifetime of stories to share and getting these down on paper assures that they will live on.
Join author, storyteller, and host Melissa Ann Kitchen as she welcomes guests from around the globe weekly to share the stories they’re leaving as their legacy. We pull back the curtains, get real and raw, going behind the scenes and discussing the story-telling processes they use. You’ll get plenty of tips and tools (and lots of inspiration) to help you write your own stories.
If you love the idea of preserving the past through powerful personal stories and want to hear how others have lived, loved, lost, and overcome all odds, then join us for The Preserve Your Past Podcast.
The Preserve Your Past Podcast
#25: Shared Stories, Unique Perspectives: A Holiday Trip Down Memory Lane with Allison & Todd
Have you ever wondered how your own memories of a shared event might differ from someone else's recollection? Come join me and my siblings, Allison and Todd, as we take a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about our cherished tradition of Christmas shopping at Robinson's Five and Dime. As we each share our distinct memories, we unravel the fascinating concept of perspective and the way it shapes our storytelling.
We discuss our joyful experiences of gift-giving, reflect on the importance of being present in the moment, and emphasize the significance of preserving our memories. Together, we navigate our way through our shared history, uncovering the unique aspects of our individual recollections and the profound connections that arise from these discussions. We'll share our thoughts on the special bond between siblings, the anticipation that made the holiday season so magical, and the value of starting meaningful conversations with loved ones.
In the final act of our discussion, we reflect on the importance of personal stories and their power to influence and connect others. The theme of survival, resilience, and legacy is explored, reminding us of the critical role that memories play in our lives. As we wrap up, we invite you, our listeners, to continue these conversations, share your stories, and join us on the mission to keep memories alive for future generations. You don’t want to miss this special episode that promises the warmth of cherished memories and sparks a nostalgic reflection of our past.
My guests:
Allison Schumann is an International Wellness Facilitator and Spiritual Mentor who has woven 25+ years in the wellness industry with embodied experience in the modalities of breath, massage, the path of Yoga, Meditation + Mindfulness, Human Tuning and Sound Therapy to help corporate groups, communities and individuals feel good more and just feel more.
Learn more about Allison at www.allisonschumann.com or follow her on Instagram: @allison.schumann
Todd Schumann is a maker, a musician, and an extremely talented creative. Todd brings his unique perspective, kindness, and creativity to all he does.
You can follow him on Instagram @toddschu70.
This group is for people who are in the process of writing their own personal stories to preserve their past for their future. It’s a place to come for story writing inspiration, weekly writing-related events and memes, and continued support from me and the other members.
Join like-minded people and get your stories down on paper for your future generations!
Do you have memories in your life that you struggle to remember all the details, or are there stories that you share with other people and just wonder what they saw in the story or how they witnessed and felt about the story? Perspective can be defined as the way we choose to see the world, including how we see ourselves and events that happen around us, and often this perspective feels like fact, but really it's not. It really is only defined from our point of view, and point of view can be a literary term. But today, in this episode, we're going to be talking about looking at a shared story from different perspectives. I have some wonderful guests today. I'm going to be inviting my sister and my brother and having a really heartwarming conversation. I think you're going to find that we got very personal and in depth about what those shared memories were like for each of us, and you'll see we had similar experiences, but we also had our different viewpoints, and I really want you to see how getting together with family or friends to share those viewpoints can be a powerful experience. So why don't you join me now and listen to this episode of the Preserve your Past podcast?
Melissa:Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations. I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchell, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it, sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Welcome everybody to the Preserve your Past podcast.
Melissa:Today we have a special episode and some guests, and I want to introduce first the topic and why I've invited them here today. So our topic is really going to be about perspective and point of view, and perspective can be defined as the way we choose to see the world, including how we see ourselves, others, the events that happen around us, and often this perspective can feel like it's actually a fact, but really those perspectives are not facts. They're really defined from our point of view. This, then, would show that it could be helpful and useful to attempt to add other perspectives. When sharing our stories, I think the thing to remember and honor is that we have our own perspective, our own truth, and that is important and valid, but we also must honor the perspective of others, especially when it comes to the stories of shared experiences. Some stories are meant to be our own, from our own point of view, from our own lens on life, but I also invite you to include other points of views into your stories, and that is what we will be doing for you today. So I would like to first quote from Friedrich Nietzsche and I've been practicing that for you all and I still probably butchered it, but a really great quote on perspectives, and he said there is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective knowing, and the more effects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our concept of this thing, our objectivity, be.
Melissa:So today, I am welcoming to special people, so that I can include other points of views for you to see a more complete perspective of some of my personal stories, and so I'm inviting today my sister Allison, who hi Allie, thank you so much for being here and my brother, todd. Now Allison and Todd are here with us today. I'm going to call her Allie, I said Allison and I'm looking at her screen and her name so you will see who she is. But I am inviting them today because I thought it would really be great, around the holidays, for us to have a discussion around a shared core memory that we had at different ages, at different times, with our family, regarding a holiday experience and go ahead tradition that we share. Thank you, and I'm going to use them to when I can't think of the words. So, welcome Allie, welcome Todd.
Allison:Thank you. Thank you, this is fun.
Melissa:So we are going to be sharing an experience that is one that we did each year with my father and I thought it would be great if we could first tell. I'll give a little bit about the background of the experience, but I don't want to say too much about it because we're going to actually do a round robin and there'll be three parts of this story. So it's going to be a story of how we used to go with our father to do our Christmas shopping at Robinson's Five and Dime in Yarmouth, massachusetts, on Cape Cod, very, very soon before Christmas. It was very close to when Christmas was happening. That's my memory, but we'll get into that. We would go with my father. We would take turns going into the store. We would take turns staying in the car while the others each bought presents. My dad would give us some money to go in and purchase gifts for just our immediate family. Then we would go and get cocoa.
Melissa:Afterwards. We're going to talk about each of our memories of not only what it felt like being in the store, what it was like doing the buying, what it was like doing the receiving, all of the feelings that kind of come up, and how our perspective and points of view are different, how our feelings about each of that part might be different. I thought it would be fun for us to explore what it was like, because not only were we having different perspectives, but we were also in different places at pieces of this, so things could have happened differently while we were in different spots. I'm going to start this off, allie. If you would like to share first any memories that you have about the experience of going and going into the store and that piece of it, I would love to hear from you.
Allison:So, similarly, I almost feel like this might have been even like Christmas Eve Eve. I feel like this was a very last minute thing and in my mind now as an adult, I imagine this was probably also because my mother was about to lose her mind, preparing for Christmas and my father gave us an opportunity to get out of the house so that she could prepare in the magical way that she did, completely unbeknownst to us. This was really an opportunity for us and so exciting to be taken by dad on a dark night into the car, all bundled up just up the street, which felt like so far across town, and have this adventure and be given a little pouch of something in our hands and be able to walk through this fiven dime of a combination of fun and junk and silly and household and toys and games and things, and knowing that while the money was ours to use for a moment, it was just so that we could treat someone else with something really special. And as the youngest of three, I probably chose really silly gifts every time from my childlike mind and that was really fun to get something silly and then to be able to hold on to this little secret until the moment where we got to reveal it was really fun too. It was like kind of diggly and sweet to have this private little secret of our own until we passed it on. So in my mind this was like an adventure. After dark it was a crispy winter night we were bundled up and went on this journey to do this together. So in my little childlike mind it was really an adventure and I laugh again today when I think about sitting in the car as we did on a number of occasions.
Allison:Too many stories to tell about being a child of the 70s and 80s.
Allison:The opportunity to sit together in the backseat waiting for the others to come back in was fun, maybe playing with the radio, maybe Todd and I God bless us for being left alone in the car together getting into trouble, being under a streetlight or I can't even think of. I think in colors and lighting, I think of leather and interior. I think of the height of the seat and where I was placed in the car and how small I felt. I think of walking into the store and the perspective of where things are as a little person, how big the store might have been or not been, and then the moment of being able to hand someone money and buy something yourself. All of those things were neat little snapshots in my mind of how that felt and that takes us just up to going to the store and being in the car and that part of the experience. Those are some of the little memories I have and then we can come back to some particulars if we get around to it.
Melissa:Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, toddie.
Todd:So, yeah, the my memory we are. We're talking about the memory itself, my memory. It's interesting. I forgot about a couple of things that Allie brought up, that I'm making little notes here while I'm doing it because it's bringing back other things. So, just sitting in the car waiting, waiting to have your turn, and trying to sit still while you're and think about, I think I think both my parents tried to get us to think about what we were going to buy, to try and keep us busy so that we weren't squirming around and getting bored and causing problems and poking each other. And, yeah, but, and and I also remember it being if it wasn't Christmas Eve, it was a day or two prior the getting to pick.
Todd:I know I remember we were pretty free to pick whatever we want. We were free to pick whatever we wanted. Every once in a while there would be like, are you sure that's what you want to get for that person? Don't you think that that's? You know? We probably were picking weird things because we had pretty much an entire run of the store and we we get walked in and we were told about, I think about how much money we had. I don't remember if we were given like a specific dollar amount or if it was like I told the story for and I was, I think I said that I might have said, oh well, we used to get like a $5 bill, but I'm not sure if that's what it was. I think we were just like, oh well, let's get, we have. You know, mom, dad and Melissa and Allison, you know. And then so we got four people, that whatever, and we were allowed to all over the store. So even though we might, might, go to the toy section, that wasn't necessarily what we were. I don't remember that being a thing. I remember it being like all whatever, you just roamed around. So now, as an adult, thinking about that, that was at some point at some some years. I'm sure was quite a challenge to have little, to have little kids roaming around the store.
Todd:For I'm sure that I got like, okay, let's go. You know, let's, let's get it, get it together. We got to get something and head back to the car. Everyone else needs their choice, I mean their chance. But yeah, I, there are aspects of it that I don't remember and we can. I guess we're going to get into that too, but it was always in a. You know, one thing that I did write down was, I seem to remember so the three of us would get to the store.
Todd:Two of us would sit in the car while my father was with the third, and whoever went in first would come back out. We get back in the car and then the second person would go, and then that third person would always be like, oh, would you get them? And sometimes you'd be like no, I'm not saying because I want it to be a surprise. And then sometimes they'd weedle it out of you or say something that you would tell them, and then two people would have a secret and you knew what you were getting the other sibling and things like that. And then I just remember, we'd pay for it.
Todd:It would get put in a bag. We'd pay for it. I think they would either tape or staple the bag shut or, if not, you would get in the car and father would put it in the trunk so that nobody saw it. You didn't have to worry about anyone peeking in your stuff, because once we got home he would take them out as well. You'd have to just make sure. Oh, taz is on the left and Allie's is on the right and Melissa's in the middle, or vice versa, whatever, and then when we got home we would go inside and he would bring it in. I think he would just bring it right to our room and put it on our beds so that no one had a chance to peek at what they had, and then we would get to wrap it and then do our. I don't know if those were the ones that we opened up on Christmas Eve or were they over the ones? Yeah, we did it for Christmas Eve. Yeah, it was like a stocking stuffer type thing.
Melissa:Yeah, that we each got to do the gifts to each other.
Todd:Right, right, right yeah. So yeah, that's my recollection.
Melissa:So it's funny between both of you and then I look at myself and who I was then and who I still am, and we were talking about the excitement of going for the car ride and the adventure, because that was totally about it and my biggest memories really are what it felt like to be in the parking lot with the light overhead and also then the older sibling of me thinking oh my God, these people see that my father left these kids in the car in the freezing cold, so the bundling up was real.
Melissa:Not the time though no, not as much. But we were kind of always like oh, I don't want them to think that we're Because we would yeah, annecy, we would get silly After a while. It was not easy to be Like. The car park was fun to a certain extent, but after a few persons coming and going it was kind of like okay, let's go.
Melissa:And I do remember having free reign of the store too. Like I remember exactly the smells of that store where different departments are mom was a sewer and so like that, parts that we might go and look for things for her or fishing, like you could get anything at that store. And I agree that it wasn't always toys that we got, even for each other. But I love how we always. I love how it made us think, because I don't remember what the limit was and I don't yeah, I can't remember if it was like here's what you get for all four or this is what you need to think about for each person. I think it might have been like here's a general amount for each person to be close to, or else that would have been hard for us to estimate, like someone getting this and trying to do that.
Allison:Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to do kid math at that point.
Melissa:But it is funny because I can picture I feel taller than Ally in this story, like I don't remember looking up, I remember just being there. But I do remember being really thoughtful For me at that age anytime we had money. Like that because it ties in going to Maine and having money to spend at the Purple Cow is that I still, to this day, get a lot of anxiety over picking the right thing For someone else, for myself, like spending the money and knowing that that's the decision to make and that decision still to this day is one of my hardest choices. So I think about that and it's funny. I remember like that didn't seem quite as overwhelming when it was for each other, because you could find the things that you were like oh, this personal, like this, because they like this, and like even some of the things I remember picking out, which isn't a lot, that I remember even receiving. Like it wasn't really about those gifts, because I can only remember a few things and I'm not even sure was I the giver or the receiver, but I'm not sure what the things were, but it was really cool.
Melissa:I do remember thinking of everyone's personality and getting excited about this thing, that I was gonna get them, because they weren't gonna get it for themselves, because we weren't always going in there to just buy stuff for ourselves, and that was rare that we had money to go buy stuff for ourselves at that age.
Melissa:Until you talked about, like Ali and I think Todd had mentioned this too like the going so close to Christmas and having it be like you get these gifts at the house, and then the idea of like Santa coming and eating all the stuff that they had all getting ready while we never slept right Like none of us slept over Christmas night.
Melissa:So I imagine that there was either a chillaxing going on or a like a festival of rapping while we were going on. Either way, yes, mom being a stay at home, mom, dad having two jobs, she rightly so deserved that one night and, honestly, when I think about that as a mom, like it should have happened quarterly. I remember that and we did go out to ice cream and do things like that, but yeah, no, I never even thought about it as the purpose being to get us out of the house, because it was more like that experience was really cool. I can't think of like specifics of how that felt, aside from like when it was dad in with each of us and then when it was dad in the car and I would be in doing the big sister stuff with the paying, so that we could all pitch in and get dad's things, because he can't be there.
Melissa:So that's another like twist of like being there in the store without the grown up now that they know who we are and what we're doing, which was actually quite fun to have like them now know us, because how fun was it what we were doing. So they were very helpful and it was a family owned little store and that was really cool part of it too. But I do remember the difference of how it felt when we got to do that for him and that was fun.
Todd:Yeah.
Melissa:So then that leads us to. So we kind of talked about what it was like to be in the car, what it was like to do the shopping and that experience, my memory I was gonna share that when we were kind of pre-doing this was about the after party, but my memory of the after party is going to friendlies and getting cocoa with whipped cream on top.
Allison:Does that ring a bell for you guys? I don't remember that at all. What I remember more is just again like the anticipation and the joy and the fun of having completed our mission and getting home and coming into the house and holding on to that, like we just did something and now we have to like come into the house and the fun of holding that in as a little kid and maybe whispering or sharing to each other or to mom, like what we got, and maybe something else happening at home, maybe in my mind, maybe cocoa was something we did when we got to the house and it overlaps with other memories of stringing popcorn and cranberries, so all of those different parts of the nights overlap a little bit. Yeah, that's the idea of going to friendlies. I don't quite remember it attached to that.
Melissa:Yeah, because friendlies was across the street, yeah, and so we would be freezing our butts off and he would take us, and that was a treat too, because it was nighttime, so we had to go before they closed, like. So it was like we were not doing this super late. It was like right when he got home from work, but it was night, just like now it's dark, and I remember that because it was a treat to get like the whipped cream and the cocoa just for the sake of going to get cocoa out, like that was crazy.
Todd:So I think, like Ali pointed on, and probably why I don't have a recollection of it, is that by the time this whole thing was done, we were all pretty much done.
Melissa:Yeah.
Todd:So I remember coming home and then we would probably probably have shown my mom what we got for dad or what we got for each one of us, or something like that. And then I do remember getting quote wrapping materials. So it would be like, well, what did you? You know well. I don't know what to wrap with this.
Melissa:Well, what did?
Todd:you get you know, and then she would come in, or someone would help to bring out how to wrap it, if it was something weird or if it was. You know, it was like an odd size or something like that.
Allison:In fact, you're bringing back the memory of I can like pretty much feel the first time I wrapped something round in a piece of paper with a bow or something like. I can feel what that crinkly and being maybe frustrated with trying to find a perfect way to make that happen, but learning the first time of how to put something around something round, that's funny.
Todd:Yeah, how am I supposed to wrap this stuffed animal? And then you try to put it and it's ripping. And sometimes you had the Sunday papers, sometimes you had real wrapping paper, sometimes we didn't have wrapping paper because my mother would forget to buy wrapping paper and then it would be, you know, in a bag or something like that.
Melissa:Well, that was birthday gifts for sure.
Todd:Yeah, oh yeah.
Melissa:Thank God for the Sunday paper. We made that cool.
Allison:Thank God, you forgot to deliver some of them, yeah.
Melissa:So okay, so that leads us to that's through any other pieces of the gift. The gift like the prepping and the purchasing of that experience.
Allison:I can specifically remember one, and I think I mentioned it to you the other day, but I can hold off if that's what you're.
Melissa:Well, as far as giving specific gift that you gave or a specific gift that you received because that's where I wanna go to next is like no, I think that's one that I gave. It is going from this experience of the purchasing to then thinking about any details that you might remember over receiving, or something you bought somebody, or things like that. Allie, you had something that came to mind.
Allison:I thought I gave it until you just said it and now I think I might have received it and, toddy, it might be you. I remember a pink stuffed pig, about this big A stuffed animal pig pink plush toy, and I was thinking that I might have given it to Melissa. But now that we're talking and I think of you, I think you might have given it to me.
Todd:Do you?
Allison:remember it at all.
Todd:No.
Allison:I think that maybe I must have given it to Melissa, but I can specifically remember the stuffed animal pink pig.
Todd:Yeah, I don't. It's that part of it. I don't think I have any recollection of like what I gave or what I would have picked. I mean there's some very vague pictures of me in my head walking through and thinking about what would you like this? Or I think I might have liked on the old chapstick or some girly I don't mean girly thing, but sister stuff.
Melissa:Yeah. I think he might have given you the pig though, Allie. I feel like that was gifted. I don't know you might have, Because I don't yeah.
Todd:Yeah, I mean, it's entirely possible. I really don't have any memory of things that I would have gotten.
Melissa:I don't remember a lot of that either. One thing I do remember is, like the things that maybe I don't remember, did we pitch in for dad or did we each get to add something and it could have changed from year to year? I remember being so excited to get him this warm hat yeah, because it was winter time and there were these cool hats, and it was like stocking, like a regular stocking cap, but I think it was for him. It might have been for you, tati, but it was like purposeful. And then maybe some sewing stuff, like maybe one of those kids that had like the thimble and then the little threader and some things yeah classic Like mom would need that.
Melissa:She had a million things, but it was like thoughtful of like oh, mom likes to sew and this is so neat and this is pretty and something like that. I kind of feel like maybe some there might have been some plastic like board games, like mini checkers boards that have been given or something like that. But I can't really like it's funny because when this topic came up it was I don't remember what the actual gifts were.
Allison:I can't think of anything, and that's interesting too, because the experience was the gift. Right, the experience was a gift from him to take us and something that we did for each other and that we received so much from just being able to do that for each other. So the experience itself is really the most important part of the memory. And isn't that a lesson in Christmas or holidays or gift giving or consumerism, right? Like which part was more memorable? Thinking of that person and doing that for that person, or this chachki from the five and dime and now I can say there are probably times where the chachki was pretty awesome or really important, and today is still little chachkis that make me happy, but collectively, I think what we're all saying is the same thing.
Todd:Thank you.
Melissa:Yeah, what? Okay, so that was perfect, because a part of the perspective building and even looking at that quote is that we all brought to it something unique about our point of view, but then we had shared experiences with each part of it. I think it's really interesting, like Ali said, that the experience part for each of us was the prevalent memory, which isn't surprising.
Todd:I do remember oh, I'm sorry, no, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say I do remember there being some years being quite stressed out or upset about picking the right things to your point, about making sure that we were now what were you like? Little, but what were you talking about? I mean, for a kid we spent. We were pretty involved as young kids in this process. So I just remember there sometimes being like, oh, I already know, because I do. I am I right in thinking that more I think about this, more keeps popping up? But am I right in thinking we got to, like, walk through beforehand? Yes, maybe we all went in together.
Melissa:I forgot that.
Allison:And then we went back in to get our gear.
Melissa:That's what's saying for the time. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. What's smart, man?
Todd:Because otherwise seriously how would you I don't know If you knew people were?
Melissa:waiting. Oh my God, that's exactly what we did.
Todd:Yeah, we would go through, because I'm trying to think, I'm trying to process in my mind how that would have gone, how that would have happened, and I'm like there is no possible way that we were like able to do that as kids or even press that to our parents as to what we, how we would do that. And then just occurred to me that for some reason I was like wait a minute, didn't we already pick it out? Sort of like you could. We all went in and we would walk around and pick out like two or three things. That's where I think the, also the, the, the I guess you could say monetary value of whatever it was. You go and pick out like two or three things and then we all got back in the car and then some go, and so you wouldn't necessarily know what it was that someone was getting you. We were hoping that they would pick the ones, but then there would be years where you know you don't think completely different, just to mess with the other person.
Melissa:Yeah, and we were kind of looking at what we were gifting, I think, more than even what we would want. But I do think that's also where some of our collaboration came in, when it's like, oh, wouldn't that be good for so and so or exactly.
Todd:But I do. But. But to your point, to get kind of back to what I wanted to say, I guess I'm having a little bit of but the, the intent and the thought process for that specific person, whether it be well for me. Obviously it was you two or mom, and you know the four of you to have that sort of intent at that young man age, because we really did think about it, we tried to think about it. I remember thinking about it and being stressed about it, not stressed out, but as a kid being a little bit like oh, I'm going to get the right thing and oh, I know they want it.
Todd:in some years we would. We would be like walking around and I'm I almost I'm sure this happened. I may be making it up, but I'm sure this happened where we'd be walking around and one of us would turn to the other one and be like I want that Probably. How would that not happen? Seriously, you know that must have happened, right. I like this. Please get this for me. And then some years, you know you wouldn't. You wouldn't be like that, yeah yeah, that's true.
Melissa:That's interesting. I forgot about that whole step.
Todd:Yeah, that's must be how it. Yeah, it must be how it went. There's no possible way.
Allison:Yeah, that's so funny.
Melissa:Yeah, so that goes to also like the, the strength and like when we are doing our stories, to kind of bring it back to even like remembering our stories, preserving our stories, that having conversations like this and remembering together can help fill in the loops sometimes and sometimes bring up the fact that the loopholes will always be there, no matter how many people you bring in, especially being the ages we were at and what the important parts of it that we took from it. So I think that's kind of cool too. Yeah, allie, were you saying you had another layer to then the next piece of this that you were?
Allison:It was just about the remembering this one item and not really being able to pinpoint if it was for, if it was for you, if it was something I received, or, but just I can picture that one thing as like, as though I could touch it in my hands right now and squish it and know it so well and the value of, I mean the three of us sitting, I don't know. I think, one other time recently we've had this conversation and this was part of the inspiration when we first started talking about doing something together, but I'm sure we haven't really talked about this for a long, long time.
Todd:Oh yeah.
Allison:And so just the the amazing value of just getting together and having these conversations, whatever they are about. Anything you know like, the picture of someone in a perfect background has less value than all of the family in an awkward position. With grandmother's potato salad in the background, that starts a conversation about the potato salad recipes and food and yumminess. There's more in that right. So just getting together and starting the conversation opens the next part of the conversation. We could talk about the car.
Allison:We could talk about right, we could talk about being over there and other shops that were in that general vicinity or other things, but the more we talk, the more little pieces come to mind, and so it's just so important to get the conversations started and and we get distracted and we live in a different, a different world that just values you know sort of present adult thinking that's in front of us and in front of our you know screens and other things that we're doing, more than taking the time to just sit here. I don't have any music on, there's no one around, I'm just looking at the two of you and this is like so filling and and so satiating to sit and get into a little bit of this together, and so it's just more to the value of the work that you're doing is like start the conversation, you don't even know what you don't know until you, until you get together and and start to remember a little bit.
Melissa:I love that. It's true. I think the other gift of this is there's so many memories right, and part of my purpose came out of not having stories in mom and dad's words. But as we're here, I'm a little emotional, realizing and gratitude. It doesn't have to come from my memories, like all the memories, I don't have to remember them all, because we had those shared experiences and wow, I have you too also from as and none of us have great memories of things because I think that we were also I think that's comes to part in that we were very much in the moment kids.
Melissa:I think our family was run that way.
Melissa:I think we were always about enjoying where we were at.
Melissa:I think it was always about I think for us and and it kind of comes to the things I think the, the feelings of what we were experiencing are more than I don't know that we're the detail memories, whereas when you talk to some people, they are those people that remember the details of, of, of everything, like what was being worn, what was being done, what was playing in the background.
Melissa:There are people that remember the fact, pieces of it, and God bless those people, and I'm thinking of a couple people that I know that are like in genealogy that can do that, that had memories of my details from growing up together more than I do, so that's a gift too, but I think that's one of the parts that that I look at as you're going to come across people with different, different ways of remembering, but also the fact that the three of us can be a resource to each other to have those memories that we experienced in different ways, but also together.
Melissa:That's kind of really cool and, and I'm grateful for that, instead of looking at it from you know, only the perspective of like what we don't have and I guess that I'm not really ever purporting that you know, get them down because of what I don't have. It's just that that's what reminded me to start seeking the ones that we do have, and so, having conversations with the two of you, I love that we pick one topic and go deep, like that was really neat, and when we're sitting across the dinner table, the topic could keep going through all different types of things but, it is nice to have one thing to kind of go a little bit more into, with the three of us all having that kind of space to kind of do that.
Melissa:So that's another piece that I would have people think about is definitely making time to do this with the people that you share the memories with, and then how to create the container and the boundaries and the experience. And one topic to start with, because it's so fun. It's kind of like writing, we don't. We sit down to write and people feel overwhelmed that they're like I need to write my life stories, I'm going to write all my life stories, and even just thinking holiday holiday memories brings up all the life stories of all your holiday memories. So it does. It is kind of like you know that process of okay, let's get the ideas down and let's pick one and do the brainstorming or the fleshing out of the one, and I feel like that's our conversation was helpful that way too. Yeah, any other reflections on the process or the memories?
Allison:No, I just think that was a beautiful way to color in and add palpable like I can, I feel and have a palpable experience of it. More with each little detail that any one person thought of, that just brought it forward, more a memory that I might have compartmentalized into something really small and a few words because I think, like who needs to hear this? But opening the opportunity, opening the floor and holding space for each other to just say it, just be able to express it and go through it, is so valuable and I think that's important work that all of us do as that, the kind of people we are and the way we were raised as storytellers was not just about storytelling but really enjoying being good listeners, to get these like to let other people know stories and then get excited over their stories and I think that's a gift and a talent that we all have in like bringing more of that out.
Allison:So I just think it was so nice to spend time in one topic so you really could color it in and make it a little brighter and bring it forward a little more, and that's one more thing that comes. That's like now I have that captured. It'd be neat to do that over here a little bit, you know, and bring that up. So I think that's taking those tiny little bites is fun and was really helpful and I think we were.
Todd:I hate to go say what I'm going to say, but we were, because it's going to just make me sound old. We were, we to your point of being in the moment. We had no other place to be. There was no options for us to be anywhere else other than in the moment. So we were, we were there, but there wasn't. You were either there or you could go to your room and pout about it or cry about it, but this is what's happening and this is what's happening. You can choose to be a part of it, which is going to be a lot of fun, or you can choose not to have fun and you can go to your room and cry about it. There is no, there's no.
Todd:Oh, I'm going to play my video game, or, or, or use my phone, or surf the web, or go get on to social media, to, you know, complain about how my family jerks, and you know this didn't happen and blah, blah, blah. And I know that I mean, but I, we're blessed with that. We're very lucky that that that was the case for us and that we did. We were, we were invested in the moment. It was all about, like, like Melissa was saying there. You know, there's some people that and I have some memories that are very, very fact based, some memories that I can pick out any little thing and then, but most those are emotional or feeling. You can you know of that nature and some are both, some have a little bit of both. Yeah, but it's just, you were in the moment because that was the only thing that was happening at that moment. You had a choice.
Melissa:Which brings me to many of the like. I have a lot of memories from similar experiences as us waiting in the car. That part was part of our memory. We didn't have things to distract us. We didn't have iPads or phones or things to space out. We were literally trying to help each other, not lose our stuff.
Melissa:We were literally trying to be patient. Now, thank you for remembering that we all went in and picked out because, honestly, I was like this just seems like an impossible. How did we do that, All of us? How would we have ever done?
Todd:that.
Melissa:Make that decision on such an important thing, because we would have taken it, but, yes, the experience of going and picking it out ahead of time. But I can think of a lot of stories that we could share, of us being patiently waiting with nothing going on in hospitals and wherever we were Trying to entertain each other while we were totally needing to be. You were present because that was it.
Melissa:There was not something to distract you, unless you created that for yourself, and so that's something else. That was definitely something that we did, which is fun.
Todd:And we did our best at following instructions, even though we were little kids and being left on our own to our own devices for hours on end. Places we had no. I mean, I know what you're talking about. I don't know if you want to get into that.
Melissa:Yeah, we don't need to tag on to that I mean, basically, we had an ailing grandfather who had to go to the VA hospital up in Jamaica Plain and the three of us would not be able to go to the hospital room. She had to bring us and we would entertain ourselves in the lobby. There's some funny stories. We didn't get kicked out, but we taught Ellie to whistle. No, she was already a super whistler before we had her whistling at nurses going by, but anyway.
Melissa:so that's interesting because that brings back just all those, those that way of like looking back at even those simple experiences that were about the experience. Okay, any last minute overviews of that experience, of talking about it or of the memories.
Allison:Nothing else. But I would say for all of those listening do this with someone now. And for those of us here on camera together, I request that we do this like, exactly like this, with nothing else around us, more often.
Todd:I'm pretty sure I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago.
Allison:Yeah.
Todd:To get all, get together and have a weekend.
Allison:Yeah.
Todd:It wasn't just you thinking about this now.
Allison:Yeah, but just like this Good idea, allison, yeah.
Todd:Yeah, just like this. Now we're so. Come up with this all on our own.
Melissa:Something else actually reminded me. Okay, as we're talking about the gift giving, that if person, just to kind of go back to the fact that the other piece of this that we didn't get to, that I do want to just kind of remember is what it felt like to give your gifts, even though I don't remember what we gave. So, yes, to confirm someone had mentioned we did share Christmas Eve gifts. We got a pair of pajamas from them, from mum, that we could wear our Christmas pajamas, and then we were able to share the gifts that we had gotten For each other.
Melissa:With each other for Christmas Eve night and that also made whatever that Chachki thing was, whether it was a sock hat or a pink pig or a sewing kit but it made it more fun because it's hard to wait for Christmas and to be able to like put on your special jammies and share your gift. It wasn't competing with Santa, no, Like you knew this, what you were given to that person was going to have that full attention of the person and it was fun to see them opening it as much as it was for us to open it. So I don't know if you guys remember that anything specific on like Christmas Eve nights of doing that.
Todd:But I just remember. I mean the Christmas Eve was, and I guess what was was the list that we would make from the Sears catalog and putting it in the fire Place. Was that, all in the same, Did we get our presents For each other?
Melissa:I don't know if we did it Christmas Eve or if we did it Christmas Eve. We did it. Christmas Eve.
Todd:Maybe the night before.
Melissa:May. I don't know. That's a good question. Did we always have a fire? Maybe we did.
Melissa:I think it was Christmas Eve. I think we did it that whole night. Yeah, the more I think about it too, coming from like perspective of mom now, with all the things and dad's lifestyle and dad's job, I mean it probably all had to happen Christmas Eve because he was also working Right All the evenings and all the things. So that would probably be a night where we probably did go shopping, like one or two nights before that on a weeknight when he wouldn't have had that. But I think that that's also what played into like the scheduling of it too. And so I bet you we did as much as we could in that Christmas Eve night because we were home all together and that was rare on a weekend that we would all be home together or if it was a weekend. But to have that evening where it was a special occasion and dad wasn't working was a big deal. So, yeah, I like that Okie dokie.
Melissa:So this brings us to the next piece of the podcast. When I have guests on the podcast, I have two questions that I ask each of them and for those of you who are listening. You've heard me ask these before and if you are ever a guest, you will know these questions ahead of time. I do not surprise people with these so that people don't have to think on their feet, but at the same time it can be kind of daunting to kind of pick the things. But my first question for each of you and we can start with Ali on this and then go to Todd is is there a story or what is one story that you wish you had from the past that you don't currently have, that was not preserved, that you don't have the details of?
Allison:So if we're starting with me, the idea, you know there there's so many and again, being so young, I couldn't think of necessarily a story. But I will say, you know, with, with full emotion, that I wish I had any of them in mom's voice. I can look at photos and I don't even have to look at photos. I can close my eyes and I can see the texture of the skin at her throat because I would sit so close to her.
Allison:I can see her eyes squint from smiling so hard that her giant smile would fill up the whole room.
Allison:I can picture the hairs on her arm like I can picture with details so much of what she looked like and how she made me feel.
Allison:But, being you know in the work that I've been in more recently and and reading into more of our experiences as humans and in sensation and in our senses and how they develop in vibration, voice, all of these things that we carry in us and knowing that sound is the first thing that we develop while we're still in the womb. It is our sense of home, and to hear someone's voice, especially your mother's voice, is for most of us, I'll say, one of the most important, comforting, sweetest things that we can come back to. And so to not have that is just just a piece that's missing a lot of good thoughts and feelings and memories and talking together. We all know what we would hear, but as I get older that's just diminished so much. For me, it's the thing I can't grasp in the ether is this is the sound anymore, and I could say that about a number of our relatives, but that's the first thing that comes to mind is just that any of the memories can't be hers. From her.
Melissa:It's interesting too to think historically to where we are now with preservation of people's voices on video and social media, and we don't have that. We don't have yeah, that's really, I mean even answering machines. If we kept, who would have had dad? But I don't remember like mom being on recordings like that Tati a story that you wish you knew or that you don't know, that you wish you knew from the past.
Todd:So I have to, I have to, I'm trying to find one, and just the the circumstance, it is a bit overwhelming to figure out one specific thing, because the more I I'm trying to find one, because the more I think about it and try to pinpoint it, it keeps opening up more emotional things and doorways and becomes less graspable and becomes more theory and I just I get angry and obviously sad and and this and that and so it.
Todd:I guess what I would say. The only thing I was saying and I wrote down, you know, was, if you have, and the listeners, because I think we already, the three of us, might already have this in our heads. But if you get a chance, just ask the question. Now we, we again like sort of to what my point of saying you know, we didn't have any of the electronics then, as we do now, and everyone's got a video of every person that you've ever had and photographs and this. That the other thing. I mean that I would, I would. There is much I wouldn't do to be able to have that kind of a record of either one of my parents that people are afforded today.
Melissa:Yeah, that's good, that's plenty. No, that's a good very yeah.
Melissa:It's an understandable and it's interesting because the question is like I can't pick just one. I can ask that for the idea of like is there a story? But like, yes, there could be that, no, there's not just one, that there's a way or and, and it kind of goes along with that. You know, stories in their words is what I had been craving, so that Ali talking about the voice, part of it and the idea, tati, of you talking about how that can just open up even more. I want just one, I want the kit and caboodle and it's emotional, so flipping that to the other side, is there a story that you've lived, that is one that you know that you would like to preserve for the future, ali, yeah, To be honest, I again I couldn't think of just one.
Allison:I've been really lucky to have a very colorful life of experiences that range the gamut of emotions, but the most valuable part of all of them is the lesson or the feeling in each one. And I'll be really brief with how I was thinking of this and our yoga teacher trainings. We offer an opportunity to talk about teachers in our lives and we break them down to seven year increments and you can run on that at home on your own in the future. But we bring these down to seven year increments zero to seven, seven to fourteen, etc. And we talk about the people in our lives or the experiences in our lives that were teachers or gave us lessons or helped us become the person we are today.
Allison:And as I thought of that, I thought of being in a storytelling and musical family that I could actually think of a song, a concert, a moment, a musical experience through many of those parts of my lives, most of them given the short time that we were all together in that house.
Allison:Many of them are in that house and many sense, and I can think of dad playing folk songs in the living room.
Allison:Fox went out on a chilly night, I can think of seeing Shana Na for the first time, or Melissa going to see air supply together and Todd seeing Tony Bennett together, or being together as a family on a picnic blanket, seeing James Taylor at Great Woods. There are stories that I could tell in separate entirety if I was to create a playlist, and when I think of that I have so much joy. I get happy, sad all the emotions, but I can move through a range of my life thinking about it in that way. So while I couldn't pick one, I look forward to going back into each of those and thinking about ways that I can share with whomever should love to hear about it my family, my students, other teachers or people about important parts of my life and how they felt or what I learned and how they've helped create the person that I am right now and they're not all people, but very often things that you know, life experiences that helped me grow in those directions. So I think that's what I thought of.
Melissa:It's beautiful.
Melissa:It's funny because after I went to see for those of you who have seen me maybe on social share some of my last week being able to go see Air Supply, after seeing them in 1981 with my eighth grade boyfriend and then bringing my sister, I was trying to remember how many years after it wasn't that far after that we went together at the Melody Tent feeling the music hit me in the gut was the word, and it actually has prompted me to create like a whole theme of writing stories, like a soundtrack, like what are the songs that create that have those memories?
Melissa:Because we are a musical family and we are all storytellers, which is funny because one of the things I was going to say when I thought about the introduction and I'll probably add on the introduction of like how we come to this for each of you and your experiences to the beginning, but many times you hear people say that each family has one storyteller or one historian and that has never been the case, not even just in our immediate us three, but like looking at the whole family, on both sides there was historians and storytellers and people that were really involved with the preservation of the past and the appreciation of the past and also music. So it's interesting to think about that as a playlist, kind of going through and hitting like those emotional lessons that we had of like. Looking at it from that way, I love that, tadi, is when I, when you thought about that a story that you would want to share and make sure it was preserved from your life or perspective, did something come to mind.
Todd:Again, without being too, however we want to talk about it. It's a. The more I touch it, the more it changes around. It's hard to keep a hold on. It probably just has something to do with something to do with sort of like what Ali was saying, which is a collection of stories, but the overall theme would just be survival. So how did we get through those things that have happened in our lives?
Todd:I hope I'm not going off not at all just the survival part, the strength of being able to continue on through and doubt and all that stuff and how. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes you should go back to being in the moment. I think there's a lot of things that you do, that you give up to survive and you put those things in order to take that next step, whatever that might be.
Melissa:I think the three of us have been there. I think it's survival, but it's also coming back to those feelings. You said it really well and that when we're in the experiences going through the loss of parents or the loss of anything or any kind of traumatic event, your body shuts down on purpose. There's parts of things that I don't remember anything of for protection purposes. And also then sometimes we make the choice not to feel the feelings because we have to do the thing. Sometimes it is a conscious choice and there can be a price to that if we decide that we never go back to feeling it in bits and bits, and that really comes from bringing up the safe places of where can we go and kind of feel those things. But I don't think there's any shame in knowing that when you have been through something traumatic, that there is a time and place for when you can open up the box and kind of look at the pieces.
Melissa:Even in storytelling I hear a lot of. This is a wonderful expression, as I started sharing more of my own stories and thinking about things I would want to put down into paper or publish or not. There's a saying that says like share from the scar, not from the wound even. I think, when we start working through our own things, that, yes, now we know we didn't know then in the 1990s that actually the feelings are part of the process. I remember trying to like I was afraid to feel the feelings because I thought once I felt those feelings I was going to be enveloped in all of them, and anyone who's gone through grief would agree there's times when you're just trying to keep from falling apart because it feels like the feelings could really literally kill you. So I think that if you don't ever take time, yes, to go back and kind of look at some of those, it can be a loss and there will be things that we won't remember because we were protecting ourselves.
Allison:But I think that's human nature and that's how our body protects us too and I think that, tadi, what's so important is when we think about what story we'd like to preserve maybe it's also like the word legacy, I think, is a great word to use and your resilience and survival through many iterations of your life and forward, and I think that's what inspires people, and I think we can all draw on people in our lives that have been inspired by our story or could be helped by our story, whose lives were touched by our stories, and I think again, the way that we feel and the way we make people feel is so valuable. So being able to share some of those experiences that you've had, I think, is allowing other people to feel with you and for you, and I think that's a beautiful legacy to have to help people feel, and then I would say to also be open to looking at all the ways that you've thrived too, because you are with your humor, your creativity, the joy that you bring to things.
Melissa:you definitely, while you have survived life and death, even thank God, but you have a way of thriving through the tough times over and over. That is a gift to, I know, to Ali and I, an energy that other people, like Ali, said a gift to others, to see what you've been through and some people may not even know that you've been through, but how you used humor, how your kindness, your, yeah, I think that the idea of how you thrive through those things, to how you've turned it into the gift of what intentionality with your life or what not, or strength or whatever. Like, none of us want to learn the strength or learn that from adversity, but we can always find things that must be getting time. But yeah, but we can. We can all know that there's, there's going to be times when, yeah, when I don't know, I lost my thought.
Melissa:There's the good and the bad, and there's, yeah, what life brings at us, whether we're ready for it or not. Yeah, but thank you both. I appreciate you joining me, I appreciate taking the time. It's never easy to kind of go back into time Sometimes when it can feel like you're surviving and you're going through things. So I really appreciate. This is crazy, but for witching hour For those of you on the podcast, the dogs have now decided that this is timing is up, so we're going to start saying goodbye. Thank you Allie, thank you Todd, to everyone listening and to watching.
Melissa:I'm going to put some little bios for Todd and Allie into the show notes because I want to share. I want to share with you some of the ways and I think Todd's piece of how we have survived or thrived. Some of the things, tools and things that that has led us to in our lives were all very like. We mentioned musical creative, but Allie does have practices that she uses as a wellness facilitator and she had mentioned some of that with when it comes to yoga. She mentioned some of it when it came to vibration, so I invite you to look at what she offers.
Melissa:And then Todd, with his creativity and his making. That's in his soul and music all three of us but I invite you to check out their links in the show notes and I really, really I'm so grateful that you both took the time to do this. I think we will need to do this again. It was a treat for me to be able to be brave to go back in time. I would say that also, allie, as you invited people to do this, to know that there's definitely any time you get together with people and kind of go into the past, there's a little bit of discomfort that comes up for many different reasons. But I really appreciate you guys joining me today and I love, love, love you and would not have survived and thrive were it not for the little mix we got here with the Cape Cod humans.
Melissa:So I love you both. Thank you for joining us.
Todd:I love you I love you.
Melissa:Wasn't that a fun episode. I enjoyed our conversation so much and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helped share the mission of preserving the past with stories, more tips, tools and inspiration. Head over to Melissa in kitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.
