I realized if I didn't start talking to my relatives, asking questions, thinking back to my own beginnings, there would come a time when those people wouldn't be around to help me look back and remember.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I thought if I went somewhere where I didn't know anybody and they didn't know me I could start all over again.
Sometimes I forget some of the things I've done. I recently recalled that after Watergate I went away by myself to Tahiti for a month, moving from island to island. That was a point in my life where I didn't know what was next.
When people see what I have now, they have no idea of where I came from and how I didn't have anything growing up.
I meet hundreds of people, and I'm not going to remember them. But every single one of them will remember their interaction with me.
After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.
I was overwhelmed when people started to know who I was.
I actually interviewed other people about myself, and that alerted me to the fact that I had to really investigate my memories.
I find I have to walk a little faster in public these days, but it's very easy to remember when nobody had any idea who I was.
I think it was when I realised I could talk anybody into doing just about anything I wanted them to.
I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.