My Book of Memories

Some time ago, I wrote about the “Book of Memories” – a little fancy notebook that every Czech child keeps. (You can see mine above.) We ask our friends and family to draw a picture and write a few words into it as a keepsake. I wonder if people in other countries have something like that too? I never heard anyone mention it. Being back home for Christmas, I have the free time to rummage through my childhood bedroom and re-discover these old things.

When you open the book, the first page has my name, address and landline telephone number on it. No emails or mobile phones back then, and the phone number is written without any dialling code. How wonderfully simple life was, when I actually remembered my friends’ phone numbers (all three of them) and when all the phone calls I made were within the town. Now? I could win a pub quiz on international dialling codes: UK 44, Czech Republic 42, Germany 49, India 90, Dubai 97, Italy 39, France 33, Indonesia 62, Colombia 57, Austria 43, Sweden 46 …

After my contact details, there’s an opening warning: “You can draw and you can write, but don’t tear any pages out!” (It rhymes in Czech.) Cheesy rhymes like that feature heavily throughout the rest of the book. As if we were afraid to express ourselves in our ordinary, clumsy prose. Everything needed curls, ribbons and rose petals.

Here is one of my favourite pictures. It’s the simplest one, a pencil drawing of a sail boat drawn by my dad. (I mentioned this in my earlier post.) The inscription next to it reads, “May the boat of your life always have good wind in its sails, and may it always reach its harbour. To little Lucie from daddy.” No rhymes, no colours. Succinct and minimalistic.

On the next page, a colourful and cute picture of a dog from my mum, along with a long poem. I could never read anything my mum wrote when I was a kid—her handwriting was a mystery to me.

… another one of those cheesy rhymes, which probably didn’t mean much to me back then, but it’s strangely meaningful now.

When fate takes us
to all corners of the world
I wonder if you will remember
your school years.

It was written by my primary school friend Šárka. Back when we were nine, we both joined this primary school which specialized in foreign languages. It was the 90s, communism was freshly dead and all pushy parents knew that English was the key to a successful future. We were the lucky ones who made it through the elaborate selection process. There were two types of kids in our class: locals and commuters. The locals had been at the school for two years before the selection process for the foreign-language class took place; they knew the teachers, the layout of this massive school, the rules, and of course they knew each other. They had their own group.

Šárka and I were both commuters, from different neighbourhoods, but still, we would walk to the bus stop together after school, we’d buy bread rolls and sour lollypops for 2 Kč in a convenience store on the way, and occasionally we would go to the swimming pool or the cinema together with the other commuter girls. We used to read the magazine Bravo, especially the “Love, Sex and Intimacy” section, where a balding gynaecologist answered teenager’s questions like: “What is an orgasm?” or “My penis curves to the left. What should I do?” We’d do our best to hide it from our parents who thought the magazine was only about music and movies. The most important issue that preoccupied our minds back then was who’ll get their period first. Sometimes we had stupid little arguments and then we wouldn’t talk to each other, like all kids do.

But then we didn’t go to the same high school and so we lost touch. In the old days, her life would have remained a mystery to me. Thanks to Facebook, I know what she looks like, I know she lives in a little village somewhere in Southern Moravia, I’ve seen her wedding photos and pictures of her baby.  Technology takes all the mystery away.

I like how the pictures give a little glimpse of people’s personalities. The one above is from an old school friend Karolína. She was the smartest girl in our class, much more grown-up and “above it all” than the rest of us. Her parents were intellectuals with doctorates in natural sciences, and, naturally, she got to kiss the prettiest boy in our class. She went to art classes after school, hence the artsy pen drawing.

And here, a drawing from one of my first English teachers. She was young, had curly blond hair and we adored her. Back then, English was everyone’s favourite subject – our textbooks were fun and colourful, we did crossword puzzles, played games, sang songs … everything was less strict and somehow more interesting than in the other subjects.

The last page: “One little golden key locks my book of memories.” Another cheesy rhyme that every nine-year-old Czech girl had in her notebook back then.