The most valuable advice I've ever received wasn't from my mother. It was from a drawing teacher.

I was in a life-drawing class, paralyzed, pencil in hand, facing my opponent--the only thing that stood between me and my intention. Almost taunting me, it was the fearsome blank page. Here's the advice, uttered by this teacher, a man I remember nothing about except these words he aimed out into the room that struck a bull's eye with me.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?" he said as he walked around the studio. The floor was hard and you could hear his footsteps. "What's the worst thing that could happen? Here's the worst thing that can happen: You'll waste a piece of paper."

That was the most freeing remark I ever heard. It said, "Begin, and if you don't like it, then begin again."

Sitting in front of our computers, we don't have to worry about wasting that paper, but that silent blank screen still can stop us. We want to add stories to our names, dates, and places and don't know where to start.

The marvelous news is that we are our own resource. Family stories are our points of reference in every situation. They are involuntary responses, like sneezing. We see a hat worn by a man in an old movie and our minds jump to our grandfathers in their favorite chairs with the afternoon newspaper in their laps. We roll our carts by the butcher case at the grocery store and a passing glance at cubes of stew beef transports us to our mother's kitchen, reaching for her blue-speckled roasting pan, the one with the lid.

Our bones are library shelves, orderly and complete. The books we want--our family history--can be found on them. Our stories are in our necks and kneecaps. Do you remember the first time you tied a tie and who taught you to do so? The first time you rode a two-wheel bike and fell down in the gravel? Even muscles have memories. Your hands would recognize, in an instant, the feel of a banister that was familiar to you long ago. Our stories are on our cheeks, in our trips to the beach before sunburn was a sin.

I saw a man and woman out shopping. I heard her say she was "letting him" pick out the towels this time. Be that as it may, she discussed her preferences, as he was picking out navy blues from the table and putting them back down for beiges.

"I like these," she said, standing at another table. "I like these, but I'd never buy a striped towel. I'll never have stripes. They remind me of when I was growing up and we had striped washcloths in the downstairs lavatory. They were so thin and flimsy. I guess we couldn't afford new ones. But I hated those washcloths and I told myself I'd never have striped ones again."

Her trip to the towel table ended up taking her to a much more interesting place. If she were to go home and write that thought down--her remembrance of striped washcloths past--she would have begun her family history. Effortlessly. Naturally. Painlessly. Without even realizing she had.

One thought begets another. The striped washcloths might lead her to the realization that maybe her family didn't have enough money to make replacement washcloths a priority. She could carry the thought further. Who lived in the house with her, what did their rooms look like, what did they all eat for supper?

Family history isn't hard. We do it everyday without thinking about it. Our minds travel in that direction. Our minds are always going home.

D.G. Fulford is the best-selling author of the classic To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come, which she wrote with her brother, Bob Greene; Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, written with her mother, Phyllis Greene; and the journal Things I'd Love You To Know: A Journal for Mothers and Daughters which will be published in April by Voice, an imprint of Hyperion. She is also cofounder of TheRememberingSite.org which helps people tell their life story.

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