I’ve been working on a way to let you explore Fragments of a Life as the pieces arrive. There’s now a small, working demo on the site.
For now, it connects the project introduction and four short posts about finding your way around. You can click between them, follow a thread, or switch to the timeline or reading list. It gives you something to try before the stories begin filling in the space.
It also shows a little of what I’m hoping to build here.
As I’ve worked on the childhood book, I’ve kept finding material that belongs alongside the stories. Sometimes it’s a reflection that takes me too far away from the child’s experience to keep in that chapter. Sometimes it’s something my mother remembers differently, a detail I want to investigate, or a question that follows me into another part of my life.
I want to give those pieces room.
The plan is to post childhood stories alongside companion pieces that return to them from where I am now. A scene might stay close to what I remember seeing, hearing, or feeling then. A separate post might explore what I later learned, what I think about it now, or what I’m still trying to understand.
You’ll be able to follow a connection from one to the other.
There will also be paths through recurring people, places, and subjects. The house where I grew up holds a lot of stories. So do school, music, friendships, and family. As more material arrives, those connections will give you different ways through it.
Some related writing will reach beyond the memoir itself, including pieces about Greenville, the world around those memories, and the process of putting this project together. When there’s a useful connection, I can make it visible.
The books will still have their own shape and reading order. Here, you can wander a little. You might follow a place across several posts or move from a childhood moment to an adult reflection. If you prefer a straightforward route, the reading list is there too.
The timeline will gradually fill in, but there will be gaps. I don’t always know exactly when something happened. And the time an experience belongs to can be very different from the time I began to understand it. I want the site to leave room for both.
Right now, there are only a few introductory pieces. That’s the starting point. As I publish more, you’ll see the web grow.
Take a look around the live demo. Start with “Start Anywhere,” or choose whatever catches your attention.
If something feels confusing or doesn’t work the way you expect, let me know. I’d like to make it easy to find your way around before there’s a whole lot more to get lost in.
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