traveling companions

I never travel without my diary.  One should always have something sensational to read on the train. ~ Oscar Wilde

A dear friend recently told me that he's started journaling.  He told me how cool it has been to get stuff out on paper to reflect and watch patterns emerge.  It was all I could do not to say Duh (ok, maybe i actually did say duh, and thank goodness he was of good humor ...).  Yeah, I'm an evangelist for writing ... and when people discover the journaling jesus, I'm thrilled to welcome them into the fold. (sometimes, with a duh.)

I don't remember who bought me my first diary - it was a gift, given in late December of 1971, just a few weeks before I turned 12 at a get-together with my mom's parents (the side of the family that celebrated christmas).  In my first entry I listed all the gifts I got that day, but I didn't mentioned who'd given me the diary.  Years later I asked both my grandmother and my parents if they recalled being the giver, but no one remembered.  I have a feeling it was one of those afterthought purchases - one that was bought to fill a perceived hole in the holiday bundle.  But what a gift it turned out to be.

A "five year" diary, it had the day pre-printed at the top of each page, and these teeny little spaces - just 4 lines - delineated by a "19__" proceeding each section. 

Even though I'd never considered keeping a diary before getting it, once this oh-so-very mod diary was in my hand, I couldn't imagine how anyone could think that 4 lines would be enough space to write one thoughts for each year; they were certainly not enough for me.  I crossed out the gold filigree "Five" on the cover, and scratched the word "One" in its place, giving me an entire page to write my daily thoughts.  As it turned out, there were days when I'd only write a few lines and other days I'd turn to teeny teeny handwriting in an effort to get all my rambling thoughts out.  Sometimes I'd skip entire weeks, and other times I'd add pages that I'd scrawled on notebook paper because there was more to say and no more room on the pre-dated page to fit all of it.   (i wonder why i didn't rebel and cross out the dates at the top of each page and write until i was done - when it was so easy for me to do that on the outside.  why were some rules meant to be broken and others were not?)

At the time, the biggest issues of the day were who I played with after school and what we did, how annoying and bossy Suz was, how my mother didn't understand me, and what boy I had a crush on that week.  There was nothing about current events: the end of the Vietnam war?  the gas crisis?  Iran hostages? ... who would write of these things when there was new music being discovered and a cute new boy sitting behind me in math class?  It didn't take long for journaling to become a regular practice.  By my mid-teens I got into the habit of hunting for the next journal as soon as I'd open up a new one; I never wanted to be without: sometimes they'd be fancy hard-backed journals, other times, an inexpensive spiral or composition notebook. 

One autumn night in the late 70's, while writing on the living room floor in front of a fire, my father sat in his favorite chair and marveled/teased me about my constant journaling: Working on the Great American Novel? he asked.  No, I said, when I'm older and trying to figure out why I'm so screwed up, I'll be able to look back on my journals and it'll all be in here.  (i would remember that conversation even if i hadn't transcribed it right into the pages within minutes of it happening ...)  And while I was probably being a flip and annoying teenager as I tossed off my response that night, in some ways, it hasn't been far from the truth. 

While "screwed up" is (thank god) not how I would describe myself, I certainly have my share of personal challenges ... and while I've yet to uncover why I do some of the things that I do (and what if i did? will that magically change what i do?), I know that my writing practice is almost as essential to me as breathing; if I go for too long without writing, I feel untethered.  It keeps me grounded, and it keeps me sane(ish) ... I can't imagine what life would be without it, and I don't want to. 

When I pick up an old journal and read, I'm reminded of events I'd long since forgotten, habits that died hard (some that continue ... damn them), phrases I once used, people who mattered who have faded over the years, and challenges that keep on repeating (again: damn them).   

Sometimes I marvel at the bumps in the road that I've faced and/or slogged through that, in retrospect, make me really proud.  There are countless "should I/shouldn't I" dialogs that I've had over the years, and it's interesting to see how often the answers that I was looking for were in my gut long before they floated up to my head.  (it can be frustrating to see how much i suffered sometimes when the answers were right in front of me all along, but it's also helpful to start to recognize some of the patterns and the signs that surface before i actually know ...). 

There are times when I read my old musings and things will take on an eerie quality now that I know what the future holds. (like this, written may 21, 2003: mom's got something up with her stomach ... it's been going on for a while; she's finally going to see a doctor.  could be nothing, worry it won't.)

There's stuff that cracks me up too ... events and relationships that took up pages and pages and pages that, were they not written down, I may have forgotten.  There are also romances that - 20 years later - I recall as mere trifles, but when I read myself at the time, I'm amazed to discover how completely invested I was. 

I've also enjoyed great cries as I re-read the arcs of old love affairs and losses so raw on the page.  And even though time heals and I don't experience them that way now, seeing how it was then can send me back into that emotion in the same way an old movie gets you weepy, even though you know how it's going to end.

Sometimes I worry what will happen to all these journals when I die ... will they be discovered and read through by family or friends who will come to conclusions about who I was based on the daily brain-dumps and neuroses and obsessions that can wind up on the pages?  Sometimes it gives me pause, but mostly, I figure that no one will actually want to take the time to go through all my volumes of blahblahblah that I've recorded over the years, and even if they did, once I'm dead, will I really care what conclusions they might come to?

More and more, I just find myself wildly grateful that someone (whoever it was) gave me that groovy-mod five-year-diary back in 1971.

I'm not sure there's a conclusion here, but I suppose that's one of the things I've learned about having a writing practice.  It isn't always about a deep, profound conclusion you come to at the end of each day when you sit down to write ... no thoughtful wrap-up or answer needed when you close one book (or entry or blog post) to begin another; sometimes you don't know what you've got until you read through and see the patterns. 

And if nothing else, I will always have more than enough sensational somethings to read on trains.