TO MY JOURNAL
Friday, 25 April, 2008:
It is with a touch of sadness and regret that I pen this note to you.
It appears that our relationship must come to an end.
No- I haven't met someone else. More like some thing else.
Please try to understand. Since 1975, I've confided in you about so many things in my life. You know that.
And though the journals I've written in have taken different shapes and sizes, it was You and not the book I was confiding in, sharing things with. Until a blank page is written on, it is just a page, but once graced with the written word, it becomes a journal, or diary, or essay or ledger, or whatever else the author's intent for the information be.
And don't think I'm not grateful. Many are the times when you were the only one who listened and remembered- the only one besides God (and my memory banks, that's been with me from Oregon to Canada, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Florida, Virginia and South America.
You've seen me through scores of girlfriends, dates, jury duty, cars, sickness, health, epiphany, stupidity, marriage, birth, death, jobs, layoffs, and everything else life has deemed worthy or necessary to toss in my direction.
"Why," you ask, "Does it have to come to an end?"
Well, it's not that it has to, as much as I choose for it to stop. I could continue to record life's events large and small, but I won't, and for what I consider to be valid reasons- the main one being that I've found a better way.
"But what could be better," you query, "than to always have me as the repository and chronicler of your life?"
"This is what's better," I reply. "Sharing these self-same events with others, and in a more meaningful way."
"And as I said before, I value your service- yea, your very existence- more than I can say. It was because of the 32 years of scribbling on your pages that I learned how to write. Without your continued presence I would be lost.
At the same time, though, something inside me has changed.
While the desire to share and story-tell has always lurked in the background, it was when I became serious about putting pen to paper, and letting my imagination take over, that I drifted away from you.
I discovered another place inside my mind that had been tapping, then pounding on the door, wanting out in the worst way. And once released, this thing called the "writing process" began to unfold on the page in front of me- one surprise after another.
While I did have the occasional epiphany during my toils amidst your pages, I found that recording what had actually occurred was becoming less fulfilling than allowing my heart and soul to show me what could be, and that the mental exercise was also helping show me what is, and more important, who I am and what I should be doing with my time from now on.
You see, I decided a long time ago what church to attend, and which woman to marry, but the thorn in my side has always been, what should I be devoting my non-work efforts to? Why I am here is an important- nay, vital- question to answer, but for years I asked the question without doing the research.
I liken it to a man wondering how to produce the water that will satisfy his thirst, when all around him are streams and lakes, ponds and rivers full of fresh H2O. All he has to do is reach out and touch it, then jump in.
You know as well as I do that you weren't the first one, though that's caused no problem between us.
There was that time when I was 12 or 13, and had started reading "Harriet The Spy." I was so taken with her journal writing that I started one myself. Was it the aura of mystery, intrigue and most of all the secrecy surrounding Harriet's spy-and-report lifestyle that fascinated me? I don't know for sure, but the idea that I was on a mission to observe and report seemed to give my life added meaning and adventure, both of which were lacking from the farm life I experienced day in and day out.
Maybe it was the fact that I could write pages of stuff and be able to hold it in my hands and say , "This is mine. I made it and no one can take it away from me."
Strangely enough, though, in the process of emulating Harriet, I fell into the same trap as she: not keeping a close enough watch on my notebook. In Harriet's case, one of her classmates came upon the journal, with disastrous results. In my case it was my sister who did the job, and after reading it she began mocking me, reading passages from it and laughing about how stupid they sounded. While we'd had our childish disagreements, I was puzzled by the cruel manner in which she taunted me with my own words, and I wondered what I had done to her to deserve such treatment.
I still remember one of the passages. It concerned some drum and bugle corps event, and took place, in part, at an old building in SE Portland, near the river. There'd been some sort of magician-comedian hired to entertain us, but his efforts were lacking. I commented in the journal about how sorry I felt for him. His jokes fell flat and on deaf ears, and his whole shtick was old-fashioned and just plain unfunny. I think he did some magic tricks, as well, also going over like the proverbial lead balloon.
My sister would recite to me some passages she recalled, only making me madder and madder. When she finally relinquished the pages, I destroyed them, thus adding another entry to the category of "Things I Wish I'd Never Done"- though it seemed like a good idea at the time. It always does, though, doesn't it?
The desire to keep a journal pretty much snuffed out, I pursued other little writing projects, but nothing substantial until about six years later.
In 1972 I was attending a small college in Eastern Oregon, in1972, and due to some life-changing events that freshman year, I started keeping another journal. I wrote in it off and on for most of the school year.
Upon returning to Portland the following spring, my journaling habit drifted away. And at some point, probably borne of frustration and anger, I destroyed that journal as well- one of the poorer "small", choices I've ever made. All of those experiences as a freshman in a dorm, my first real girlfriend, playing softball in a farm town city league- all gone.
It wasn't until 1975, when I returned to La Grande for a fresh start that I resolved to start keeping a journal again. It was April 16 when I penned those first words in the empty ledger book I'd purchased. It was a black book about 8 inches tall by 5 inches wide, with a red binder label, the word "RECORD" printed on the spine in gold leaf lettering. The last entry, on Page 160, was written nine months later at a language training school in Utah, while preparing to serve a church mission in Argentina.
That was the book that formed the foundation for our relationship- one that's lasted over 30 years, and taken 3,700 pages large and small to tell my story.
But over a year ago those entries became fewer and farther between. For you see, something was happening to me. Though I'd walked out of a Creative Writing class in February 2007, the fires of my imagination were rekindled. I knew that I wanted to write. I also knew that I'd need to practice writing every day.
And along with that decision I purchased a few composition notebooks in which I recorded journal entries, random thoughts, poetry attempts, story ideas, etc. In a funny way you could say that all those entries in the 17 journals have spawned another set of ten notebooks, all full of writing I could not have accomplished without the previous years of practice.
So, with these words I bring to an end my explanation and farewell. Maybe someday, when I figure out how to truly write well, I will start writing in that 18thvolume again. But until that moment I will continue to scribble the occasional journal entry in one of the many composition books stacked on a shelf in my bedroom.
Thanks again.