The Memoirist

“Why don’t you write your memoir?” say my friends. “You’ve led such an interesting life.” There is only one deduction from this. It is presumed that I am now a fully paid up member of the international SSG, the Senior Silver-haired Gang. I have history or am I history? I have a past. I am at the memoir stage, the old body might be at the breaking down stage, or the old memory might be going stage. But did not a pop star of 24 recently do her memoir?

Well, I must agree I have enjoyed a longer stretch than 24 years. My contention is never write a memoir until you know you have reached the end, make sure you have lived your last adventure. Unless of course you have a terminal illness and your reliable doctor has given you the required three months to live.

If I decide to heed my friends, my dilemma is how to approach this “putting down of my past.” Confessional? No, that won’t do, too juicy, what will my relatives say. Throw in an abused childhood? Though this is much in vogue, won’t do as it won’t be true. How about drugs, booze and sex? I was there in the sixties but I don’t remember any of that. How about The Leela Diaries? But then I never kept a diary.

I see two choices of recollection. Someone will have to throw me a surprise birthday party. A “This Is Your Life” birthday party, where all my relatives and friends and party-crashers gather at a 5-star hotel, where the walls are lined with larger-than-life pictures of me (digitally enhanced), then lights are dimmed, video clips unroll my past — the one I cannot remember — with my mother proudly cooing at a dark item in a fluffy pink bundle that is me, the ugliest baby.

Then on screen comes a picture of me at four, sitting on the toilet with my knickers around my ankles, sipping Coke through a straw. Then me as a teenager, skinny as a rake, masses of black hair, thick unruly eyebrows and my mother says something cute on the screen, my Dad reveals something embarrassing.

The clips roll on, showing a couple of my school chums, whom I had forgotten and now remember that I never liked, relate a few teenage adventures, a couple of ex-boyfriends elicit laughs from the audience at my expense.

Then the professional video of me and my man on our wedding day, the best man mouthing inanities, and then finally my ex-husband (who invited him?) appears. At least he has something tasteful to say. Guess he still misses me. I wonder who put all this together. Yes, it will prove a good memory jogger and will recall those interesting adventures my friends were referring to.

Or I could go for my second choice. BALEK KAMPONG, yes, RETURN to the VILLAGE in Penang where I began.

I think I will balek kampong for my mystery monologue, but not yet.. there is more history to live, more adventures to come.