{"id":1875,"date":"2024-11-25T09:17:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T08:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2024-11-25T12:38:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T11:38:46","slug":"modern-memoirs-a-different-kind-of-personal-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1875&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Modern memoirs: A different kind of personal archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kristin Fehlauer<\/em><\/p>\n

Google\u2019s been pressuring me lately to either delete emails and photos or upgrade to more storage. The upgrade costs money, and I\u2019m stingy, so I\u2019ve been trying to clear out my inbox, which began accumulating emails in 2009.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I can\u2019t simply delete emails willy-nilly, so I\u2019m sifting through old correspondence. It\u2019s like a digital excavation. Starting with the oldest emails brings me back to a time when I hadn\u2019t been in Munich for too long and was still trying to find my footing. Back then, I became involved in a nascent English-language choir<\/a> that quickly took over my life for a few years\u2014not to mention my inbox\u2026<\/p>\n

There are other signals of the passage of time as we dig through the digital strata. Most striking are the emails I have setting up accounts so I can make purchases from companies that no longer exist, or for events that stand out against the canvas of the everyday: gifts for special birthdays, bridesmaid dresses for weddings. Names flit in and out of frequency as well; I\u2019ve always been deep in the expat communities here, and by their nature these see a lot of turnover.<\/p>\n

The change in my email traffic parallels another change that occurs over a long period of time: a shift in what I think of as \u201ccity focuses\u201d. I used to work out on the eastern edge of Munich, requiring a trip to the end of my subway line plus a short bus ride. My apartment then (as now\u2014have been in the same place for my entire Munich life) was already on the east side of the city, so every workday had an eastward focus.<\/p>\n

Then my company moved us to a location on the northern rim of the city, right where the A9 meets the Mittlerer Ring. Now my daily commute was taking me westward, across the Isar River to the city center, and then up north. My route ran through the vibrant district of Schwabing, so any errands I did on the way home were often done there. Just as certain names and subject lines gradually faded from my inbox, I eventually forgot the order of stops on my subway line further east than my own.<\/p>\n

A couple of job changes later, and now I work in a neighborhood bordered on the west by the Isar. It\u2019s only about a 20-minute walk from my home. When I was going to krav maga<\/a> regularly, I attended a studio 20 minutes from my house. Most of my life revolved around this triangle all in one neighborhood; in fact, there were weeks when I didn\u2019t cross the river at all! Each rare trip to the city center or, heaven forbid, as far north as Schwabing would bring up years-old memories\u2014much like my email excavations call to mind names and faces from the past.<\/p>\n

I no longer go to krav maga, so my focus is shifting once again, although not in any firm direction. Lately I\u2019ve been taking the subway to different destinations just a few stops away from mine and walking some or all of the way back home. It\u2019s a lovely way to discover parts of the city I don\u2019t have a reason to go to. And my photos of these \u201cparts unknown\u201d form yet another stratum of digital media I\u2019ll look back on in years to come.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Digging through the emails of a decades-old account is like sifting through archaeological strata. It also gives you the chance to reflect on the twists and turns your life has taken, even the less obvious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[743,745,744],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}