Well, to tell you the truth. . .

One of the clearest, earliest memories that I have is of my first day of kindergarten. It was a sunny day (a bit of a miracle for Oregon) and I remember picking out my absolutely favorite dress to wear for the occasion. I think it was pink, with little stripes, of a material more like a sweater than anything formal (typical of dresses for kids). I was missing a few teeth (a fact of which I was rather proud) and my parents took a few pictures of me in front of one of the school murals. The wall was rough and bumpy under the layers of turquoise paint, a scene in the Native American style, with a forest and salmon. I was a bit jittery, but kindergarten only met for half days, and I had spent the morning with my mother grocery shopping and making lunch (I was in the afternoon class).

The next most vivid thing I remember about that day was my teacher, an older woman with a mess of grey and white hair, how kind and welcoming she was of everyone. She was what I imagined grandmothers should be like (and not like the one absent from my family for, at five, reasons my mother wasn't willing to share). Mrs. Tucker, or Señora Tucker, because I was in the bilingual program and would be learning mostly Spanish .



The only parts of which I am uncertain are  how I got from in front of the mural to the actual classroom, but by logical conjecture I can assume I walked there through the main hall, past the library, up the ramp, and to the classroom; the other route was along the driveway and up the front stairs of the school, which was, obviously, unsafe to travel were one not in a car.

I know what I felt for Mrs. Tucker is properly recollected, but I can't say for sure if I felt that warmly for her on the first day of class. That may have come later in the year, or perhaps even after I had moved into the next grade but continued to visit.

Were I to turn this into a memoir I would be comfortable calling it non-fiction to the point that the events were true, but that my writing voice is not genuine to the memory. In order to make the voice of the piece true to the memory, I would have to write as a five year old would recount something, and where I to do that it may detract from the piece being understandable.

"If you remember it, then it's true."


I can agree with this to an extent. How you remember it will be your truth, and no one can really argue with that. This means, however, that are you to write or retell the story and market it as non-fiction, you must preface it with a disclaimer: "this is my non-fiction. anyone else who was there at the time may tell you differently."

But who would say that if their version of events is much more interesting? That in and of itself is a complicated matter that can be explored from a psychological perspective, such as why people lie to seek approval, or myriad other reasons we lie and change ourselves in order to fit in, but this is not the proper place to do that.

Regardless, you can't over-embellish a story and still call it true.

And here is a decent source giving a few reasons our memories are not the most reliable things around: The Seven Sins of Memory (wikipedia)