The weekend seminar "My Life Book" took place at the Schatzalp in 1.800 meters above sea level above Davos, in Switzerland instead of. The goal of this seminar was to learn how to write freely and to review one’s life. A lot of things have disappeared from your mind and you can only dimly remember them.
I was excited to see what I would learn in the seminar and what memories would be brought back.
– We write to taste life twice. In the moment and in retrospect. –
The course was led by Mrs. Elisabeth Moser, a journalist, poetry and bibliotherapist with a long experience in free writing.
Twelve women of all ages participated in the seminar, which took place in the chalet of Schatzalp. The participants were all from Switzerland, and I was the only German participant. Everyone tried not to fall too much into their dialect and I, tried to speak slower.
The result was that we all got along very well and from the beginning there was a very pleasant atmosphere. From the beginning the seminar seemed very relaxed but at the same time very informative.
Why do I want to write my biography?
In the first round of talks, there was a lively discussion about why and how I would like to write my biography.
More information:
Organizer: klubschule MIGROS
Link to the website: klubschule.ch
Current Another Date:
Saturday, 20. Until Sunday, 21.10.2018
For the majority of the participants it is very important to tell their children and grandchildren more about their life.
You want to make clear to them how they lived and worked as children and young people, what things moved them and what they laughed and cried about. All of these experiences and events have made us who we are today.
By writing our "book of life" we hope that our children and grandchildren may better understand some of the decisions we have made in life.
How to learn free writing?
Believe it or not, free writing, or also called automatic writing, can be learned quite easily.
To start with, all you need is ten minutes of your time, a white sheet of paper, a pen that is easy to write with and that feels good in your hand. That is actually all.
But where do I get the idea of what and about what I should actually write??
One of our first exercises started with the words "this morning" and while I am writing these two words, I am already thinking back to the morning and writing, letting my thoughts run free and in a short time I have written more than one DIN A4 page.
While the thoughts are flowing, one should not take the pen from the paper, simply cross out the words when the thoughts take another direction. In the same way, I can start an exercise text with words like "last night" or "many years ago", because then I automatically think of a certain event and writing is much easier right away.
How to describe a special event?
How to describe a special experience or a very important day for me? With the confirmation of our registration we were asked to bring photos that are special to us. With the help of the photo the memories come back and the sometimes very long ago event becomes alive again. The more accurately I describe the image and what I experienced, the more visible it will be to those who will read it one day.
Another help is to bring out your memories, make a table and fill it with events that happened five to ten years ago, ten to fifteen years ago, etc. have happened. With the help of this list you can quickly get his life from the present day to childhood. When you look at the list afterwards, you first realize how old you really are and how long ago everything happened.
What would I like to leave for posterity?
Now I have learned a whole I have learned a number of ways in which I can write down my thoughts and how I can put my past to paper to the present.
The only question I have now is, do I want to create an autobiography so that my life from birth to the present day can be read or should I only write down important and special events of my life? But perhaps I should only ever write down one special event as a story, an event that was and is something very special in my life?
The decision, how I should write down my life, no one can take from me, everyone must make for themselves.
It was unbelievable to myself how quickly one can reapproach one’s own way of writing a text and how many memories can be quickly brought back from the past with the right explanation.
We never forget, we just need to be reminded of it again. Writing an autobiography, about my own childhood, youth and also "growing older", was never a topic for me, but after the weekend seminar with Mrs. Moser I got the desire to deal with my own past once again and to write down the memories not only for my own family, but also for many people who feel similarly.
The Hotel Schatzalp – 300 meters above Davos
When one hears the name Schatzalp, one automatically thinks of Thomas Mann and his novel "The Magic Mountain. Thomas Mann got the idea for the novel while he was visiting his wife Katia, who was taking a cure in the Waldsanatorium – today’s Waldhotel Davos.
The Hotel Schatzalp lies with its length of over 100 meters on an artificially created high plateau. In 1900 the hotel was built on the initiative of Jan Holsboer as a luxury sanatorium. The railroad line from Landquart to Davos was one of Holsboer’s most important works. The Hotel Schatzalp faces completely south, so that the patients could breathe the sunny and healthy mountain air on their balconies.
Medical progress ensured that the sanatorium was closed at the beginning of the 1950s. After a short rebuilding phase, the Hotel Schatzalp, as a hotel, was opened with 92 rooms. During the renovation, great care was taken to preserve the historic features. So even today the historic lift is still in operation.
Today the Hotel Schatzalp is an ideal starting point for hiking and biking tours in summer, as well as for ski tours in winter.
With the Schatzalpbahn the hotel can be reached in only four minutes from Davos-Platz.
My conclusion to the weekend seminar "My life book"
The seminar with the accommodation in the Hotel Schatzalp was very successful. The seminar, led by Mrs. Elisabeth Moser, was very instructive and interesting. I hadn’t remembered many events and happenings in a long time. A few suggestions here and there make the past come alive again. Now I will think about what I will leave to my posterity in writing.
Also, it was a very nice group, so it was also easy much to share thoughts and memories with others. My thanks to Mrs. Moser and all the dear and nice "Swiss" women.
However, I was not only at the weekend seminar on the Schatzalp, but I also visited Davos and the surrounding area. What I saw and experienced there, you will learn in a separate report.