The memoir is an enigma. It's a little like finding the meaning of life.
Different writers use different methods.
In The Stations of Still Creek , Portland's Barbara J. Scot concentrates on one period of time, a long season spent in the woods contemplating her life and her marriage. I had invested my creativity in bringing out the creativity of others, had read poignant and beautiful poems by my students, and not written poems of my own. But though she felt that the decision to leave a paying job was hers to make, the consequences of such a change would be shared. So, slowly and without much planning, she begins spending more and more time at their cabin beside Still Creek, in the Mount Hood National Forest. I paused mentally at each station, tilting my head just so to catch the light on the water, the raindrops suspended from the lichen, the shine of the dark wood, the caged light in the tops of the maples.