Writing about memories and records of experience

Akira Kurosawa has said:

I've forgotten who it was that said creation is memory. My own experiences and the various things I have read remain in my memory and become the basis upon which I create something new. I couldn't do it out of nothing. For this reason, since the time I was a young man I have always kept a notebook handy when I read a book. I write down my reactions and what particularly moves me. I have stacks and stacks of these college notebooks, and when I go off to write a script these are what I read. Somewhere they always provide me with a point of breakthrough. Even for single lines of dialogue I have taken hints from these notebooks. So what I want to say is don't read books while lying down in bed.

Write a story that begins with your character facing a crisis and finding a hint of something in old diaries, photos or something similar that sheds new light on the crisis.