I didn’t want to take my daughter to the beach.  I told myself she’s a naturally cautious kid, and was sure to lose her enthusiasm soon after arrival.  Frankly, I don’t much like the beach myself: it’s hot, it’s sandy, and a great place to get skin cancer.  Plus, it just hasn’t been convenient. 

I was swamped at work, or we were moving, and after that, unpacking.  If it wasn’t for my 20 year high school reunion, held right on St. Pete Beach, I’d probably still be making excuses (despite my guest post over at Pink…Like The Color extolling parents to travel more with their children).  My daughter had a blast kicking at waves, building sandcastles, and sliding on and off (and on and off) a friend’s floatie.  She wasn’t intimidated by the beach one bit, even after taking a wave to the face.  All that enthusiasm on her part translated into one terrific family vacation for all of us (and maybe even a re-evaluation of the merits of the beach).

When it comes right down to it, the problem is that I have prioritized productivity over memory making.  You don’t make long-lasting memories running errands together.  When I first started this blog, I described myself as a “recovering Type A personality.”  Eventually I took the description out of my bio because I wasn’t making even one teensy step towards recovery.  Now, I just try to focus my Type A tendencies toward the greater good, in this case, strengthening the family bonds.  When a co-worker of mine passed away some years ago, a colleague said, “No one ever wants their tombstone to read I wish I’d spent more time at work.”

If memory making should be important to anyone, it should be people like me who tend to be memory impaired.  I know from experience it takes a fairly emotionally charged event to make my recall list.  So it’s not just creating memories for my daughter that’s important.  I want to remember and cherish this time in my life too.  Here are 5 ways you can escape the prodcutivity trap and enrich the lives of those you love, as well as your own.

1. Build Rituals: In the August 2010 issue of Psychology Today, the article Relative Happiness quotes Tolstoy as saying “all happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.”  One thing that helps breed happy families is rituals, whether it’s night-time routines, like asking my daughter her favorite part of the day as I put her to bed each evening, or participating in more elaborate family traditions such as religious observances.  The key is to either tap into frequency (daily or weekly events) or awe (less frequent, but “sacred” moments) to imprint the memories.
2. Be A Role Model: In his book review of “The Surprising Power of Family Meals” in The Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley reveals “The family suppers of my own childhood are more than half a century in the past, but they are among my most vivid memories.”  Unfortunately, these days it’s not enough just to get everyone sitting at the same table; you have to model the interaction you want to create.  That means keeping any distractions, like your cell phone, blackberry, or even magazines from the day’s mail, away from the table.  The key is to be mindful of your own actions that (often unwittingly) prevent connections when you’re together.
3. Get Creative: One of my favorite sections in The Sun Magazine is Readers Write.  The theme for the August issue was “The Last Word,” and reader Anjelina Citron described her creative, heart-warming ritual for saying good-bye to her family each morning.  “Whenever I part with my kids or my husband, I alwasy try to say something loving, because I imagine a car crash or someone’s heart giving out and I know how I would feel if the last words they’d heard from me had been impatient or distracted.  But I also don’t want my “I love you’s” to become automatic.  I want to create new ways to say goodbye that mean “I love you” but that feel unique and intimate and genuine.  For several years when he was little, one of my sons used to say to me ‘Fare long, old crumpleweed, my friend,’ whenever he left the house. I have no idea where he got this from, but those are last words I could live with.”
4. Find Ways to Laugh: Some of my fondest memories from childhood are also the funniest.  Like the time my Mom unexpectedly mooned everyone the dinner table, or teasing my Dad for watching yet another documentary on the reproductive behaviors of some animal species.  Laughter is not only the best medicine, it’s memorable.
5. Be Yourself: You don’t need to put pressure on yourself to create amazing memories either.  Remember the scene in Good Will Hunting when the therapist played by Robin Williams recalls his deceased wife and her penchant for farting in her sleep?  Sometimes it’s not the big event or gathering that stays with us, but the personality traits that make our loved ones unique.  (I will be eternally grateful if my loved ones do not remember me for a bodily function, thank you very much.)

Dr. Michele Borba, a parenting expert, offers a good litmus test: Pretend it’s twenty years in the future and you’re at the family reunion.  What will you and family remember about this time in their lives? If your list isn’t as long as you’d like, try out some of the tips above and let me know how they worked out.  As for me, I’m already thinking about simple ways we can create lasting memories without having to journey to the the surf and sand.  I may not like the beach but it was memorable, if for no other reason than the humor of one very pale family whooping it up under the sun.