When people ask me what No, I Won't Buy You a Drink! is about, they usually expect me to begin with the obvious parts of the story. They expect to hear about travelling through different countries, living with hearing loss, recurring pancreatitis, and the adventures that naturally stand out when someone looks back over a lifetime.
Those things certainly happened, but when I finally sat down to write the memoir, something unexpected happened as well.
The memories that kept returning weren't always the dramatic ones. They were the conversations that lasted only a few minutes, the unexpected kindness of strangers, the misunderstandings that only became funny years later, and the quiet observations that had somehow stayed with me for decades. I found myself writing about people far more often than places, and about ordinary moments far more often than extraordinary events.
At first that surprised me. I assumed the biggest adventures would become the centre of the book. Instead, they often became the backdrop against which something much quieter was taking place.
Looking back, I think there was a reason for that. My hearing difficulties and recurring pancreatitis travelled with me almost everywhere I went, but they were never the reason I travelled. They were simply part of life, rather like carrying a backpack that occasionally became heavier than I would have liked. Sometimes it demanded all of my attention. Most of the time it simply came along for the journey.
What continued to interest me far more were the people.
Over the years I came to realise that the moments which shape us rarely announce themselves as important. They arrive disguised as ordinary conversations, brief encounters, awkward misunderstandings or small acts of kindness. At the time they seem insignificant, yet years later they're often the memories that remain while much of everything else quietly fades away.
Perhaps that's why I became more interested in observing people than describing places. Long after I'd forgotten the details of famous landmarks, I could still remember the person standing beside me, the conversation we shared, or the way a single moment had quietly changed how I understood the world.
That realisation shaped the way I wrote No, I Won't Buy You a Drink!. I wasn't trying to create a catalogue of adventures or a collection of dramatic stories. I wanted readers to experience the journey as I had experienced it, where the greatest discoveries were often found in places nobody would think to look.
Looking back now, I don't believe extraordinary lives are built only from extraordinary moments.
I think they're built from thousands of ordinary moments that most of us walk straight past.
I just happened to stop and notice them.
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#BehindTheBook #MemoirWriting #Observation #TravelMemoir #AustralianAuthor #DJGifford #Authenticity #HumanBehaviour #NoIWontBuyYouADrink #Perspective