Truth is, I have a lousy memory. No doubt it’s getting worse, but for all of my life I have been aware of not remembering stuff I thought I should. How many times did I stare at an essay test question in disbelief, realizing in that moment my brain had gone completely blank on what the hell that question was even about. And names? Oh, goodness. Faces I remember pretty well, and the sound of voices, but names? After Christmas break I’d have to study seating charts just to familiarize myself again with the names of my students.
But this lament isn’t really about loss of memory, but the value of being a reasonably regular intermittent journalist. (How’s that for a tongue twister? :-) One more time: a reasonably regular intermittent journalist.
Translation: I do like to write. Never really thought of myself as a writer, until the book, surely not a news journalist, but I’ve learned in my retired life that I can sit here at the keyboard all freaking day if the muses are whispering to me. Yesterday I cranked out over ten pages of fiction while sitting on the back patio, bluetooth keyboard in my lap, laptop computer propped up on the patio table just far enough away that my computer glasses still kept my eyes in focus. I gave up when it got dark.
I also just like to babble to myself from time to time in personal journal entries. Some grow into blog entries like this one, but most just reside on a page or two, written perhaps in the middle of the night when a memorable thought haunts me to the point that I just go write. This summer’s long-running journal entry, begun back at the end of June, is titled “Simply grateful,” in homage to a good buddy who is in a medical fight for his life, who ALWAYS signs off in emails and on FaceBook as Grateful Mike. As a journalist trying to capture the flavor of the season, that lovely touch of living really got my attention.
My seasonal journals can get a bit metaphysical, depending on how intoxicated I am at the time, but pretty often they record important stuff going on in my life. This summer’s first entry briefly summarized our Hilton Head Island villa-buying experience, but mostly dug a bit deeper into what I am comfortable admitting to myself.
Translation: After a lifetime of contemplation, a few of those years under the care of a psychotherapist, I seek to write only the Truth in my personal journals. And as a person who evaluates nearly everything he learns, when a clarification of a thought jumps at me, it’s best to get to the writing right away, or at least make a note on the pad on the nightstand for consideration in the morning. Sometimes it’s just a dream and doesn’t amount to much, but sometimes it seems mighty damn important.
“New” personal realizations to me are akin to the “layer of the onion” analogy in which when one layer comes loose, something deeper, that frankly might have been there all along, becomes visible/memorable. It’s just that I hadn’t made the mental connection until that moment & I figure that’s pretty important.
And that stuff, my friends, is what I consider a prime benefit of a writer’s life: recording the really good stuff as memory jog so you can treasure the road taken, and those not, at later times along a journey only I am on.
I guess what I’m hoping is that my computer journals plus my stacks of old handwritten stuff & my poetry notebooks will find a safe place to hang out until somebody deems them a worthy time capsule into an old school teacher’s lifetime — at least for those few family members who get bitten by the genealogy bug.
PS: Just to clarify that reasonably regular intermittent journalist thing: summer 2021 journal entries so far: 27 June, 30 June, 27 July, and 10 August. Ten word-processed pages, totaling about 3k words. Might mention thirteen new poems reside in the 2021 poetry collection, plus a few dozen pages of romantic fiction that I’m just about too embarrassed to mention. I want it to be erotica, but Cindy thinks it’s just juicy romantic fiction. Hmm…
Today’s elder idea: Poetry is like a personal journal without the lock.
Billy Collins
a reasonably regular intermittent journalist. I think it's wonderfully apt, I appreciate your insight and the devotion you display. I like what you're doing here.....see you soon.
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