Virginia Taft believes that most people have a book in them. Tucked away, just waiting for the opportunity to be written.

A retired occupational therapist and longtime Coeur d’Alene resident, Taft has been writing for most of her life. She is currently writing a book about a tradition she began with her mother many years ago: a memory box.

The memory box is oval with a lavender brimmed lid painted with wildflowers. Taft gave it to her mother, Penny, more than 40 years ago when she was a young woman living in Boise and her mother was still living in Kansas. Inside, on slips of pink paper, Taft had written memories of their shared experiences together.

“It was a way to keep us connected,” Taft said. “She was impossible to buy a gift for.”

When her mother died, the box found its way back to Virginia. It inspired her to journey to the Midwest, where her mother had spent most of her life. That trip and the memories it triggered inspired Taft to write a book. She will share her literary journey with the community at libraries throughout Kootenai County this month.

“Our libraries were excited by Taft’s work, because so many of our residents were interested in writing themselves,” said Community Library Network Communications Director Anne Abrams. “The program that she is presenting is a really great way for people to explore their memories and write them down.”

Taft will present today at 1 p.m. at the Post Falls library. Future presentations will be held at the Rathdrum library on Jan. 9 at 2 p.m., the Athol library Jan. 16 at 4 p.m. and the Pinehurst library Jan. 28 at noon.

Memories are so often things worn inside the mind. Taft’s workshops are about sharing memories, bringing them out into the world for other people to see.

“A memory box is not a complicated thing, but is one way of getting that oral tradition into something written,” Taft said.

She plans to lead workshop attendees through writing exercises designed to inspire the power of their own memories.

Taft believes travel and writing are a way to place your childhood, to feel how your perspective shifts with age.

“And although we don’t want to live in the past, so much of our past has become our present,” she said.

Taft’s mother eventually moved to Coeur d’Alene. She lived with Taft until she died at age 90. She had grown up during the Great Depression and valued things that could not be bought, but were instead created. As a teenager, she had the opportunity to go on vacation with her family to Mackinac Island, Mich. It was during a time when people didn’t have the money to go on vacations. She spoke of it often, especially in Coeur d’Alene, where the lake and the tall trees reminded her of the magic of the island.

Taft intended to take her mother back to Mackinac Island, but she soon became too frail to travel the more than 2,000 miles to her favorite memory. Instead, Taft loaded her mother in the car and they drove to Sandpoint on Lake Pend Oreille.

Crossing the bridge over Pend Oreille River, they pretended they were crossing the Straits of Mackinac Great Lakes State Bottomland Preserve into Penny’s childhood summer. They treated themselves to a meal at Trinity Restaurant and dipped their toes in the great lake.

When her mother died, Taft gathered up her memories and journeyed to the Midwest.

“It became known between us that when she passed I would make that trip for her,” Taft said. “I took the trip to honor [my mother] and to connect with her. It was cathartic. It provided closure. I learned things about her that I didn’t know.”

Taft left without any deadline to return home. As she traveled, the trip took on a life of its own. She visited relatives and made new friends. She traversed 14 states and made a loop to Topeka, Kan., to her mother’s grave.

Towns triggered memories and Taft wrote them down. Standing on the porch of a little house with green shutters where she knew she lived once, Taft could sense her own childhood in those places.

“Some of the places I didn’t even think I remembered, because I was so little. Then I realized there are places in your psyche that come back and you may have seen them in a dream, but they’re from a place so far back that you don’t remember.”

At least not until the journey stirs them up.

Taft is enamored by the complexity of place. How every town, in every corner of the globe, harbors extremes between the haves and have-nots, between the upper echelon and the underbelly. She’s traveled all over the world, from Africa to Nepal. In the Midwest, she spent a lot of time in diners, talking with the locals.

“I believe in getting that oral tradition,” she said.

The trip reassured Taft that people are people everywhere. Each town had its own personality and Taft found that when she shared her memories, it encouraged others to dig into their memory wells.

“Virginia talks about the power of memory,” said Twylla Rehder, Adult Program coordinator at the Community Library Network. “She goes on a physical journey to retrace the places where her mother lived. It becomes a transformational journey for her. It shows the power of memory in our lives.”

Taft remembers her mother standing at the window in her home. How she would look out at the flat gray winter sky and say “I think I see a little bit of blue.”

“That was her way of looking at the world,” Taft said.

Taft’s journey through the written word is a way to hold on to people who have passed on. It’s a way to turn memory into action.

“We all have purpose in our lives,” Taft said. “But it’s how you shape that experience.”

She’s excited to help others put their stories on the page.

“Your memories are your legacy,” Taft said.