I’ve always thought I should start a journal. And once upon a time I did, although I didn’t keep it very long. When we moved to Belgium in 1976, my grandparents gave each of us kids a blank book to record our experiences living in Europe. Sarah’s was red, mine was dark brown, and they all had gold stamped curliques and designs on them…very posh. Reading back through my 12-year-old entries is an exercise in eye-rolling. I was such a dork! I made lists of my friends (shades of LJ) and wrote down all the gifts I got for my birthday and for Christmas. I didn’t keep it up for very long, and most of the entries consist of the “We did this, we did that” style of journaling. I used the phrase “I am bored” many, many times. There is a huge long blank section, and then suddenly an entry dated August 4, 1980, which reads “Boogers is the word I use the most! My mom hates it.”
After that, there is roughly 1 entry per year until the end of college. That was it for my journaling until last August when I started this one.
Now, I think it’s sad that I never kept it up, that all those years went by unrecorded except for in the faulty, memory-dropping sieve that is my brain. One thing that I especially wish I was better at remembering is dialogue. I can never remember conversations or one-liners. They’re gone forever, having fluttered through the holes in the net and escaped. It was the same way with studying and with work today, I remember things better when I write them down. LJ makes this process so incredibly easy. Even now, though, there are things I should record for posterity, and for whatever reason, I don’t. Maybe because I think no one is interested but me. Maybe because I know that the cute and funny things my children say are rarely amusing to anyone else. Whatever.
Martin, after I accidently zapped him with a static electricity touch: Mama, du är allergisk!*
The thing that bugs me about this journal is that I want to know that someone’s reading it. I’m writing for an audience, not just for myself. I’m all into checking my comments and getting bummed out when there aren’t any. I get the OCD thing going, thinking, I can’t post a new entry until SOMEONE comments on the last one. I get that manic look in my eye then, and have to squash myself good. Squash!
Today was full of the kind of minor accomplishments that make up my life: getting laundry done, the kids dept picked up, the kids bathed and put to bed with nearly no fuss. Because the sun was shining in upon my project table, and the house was quiet and I had NO OTHER PLANS, I finished nearly an entire page in my collage book. First one in months. 🙂 That felt good. While I was sitting there glueing things together, I watched the ponies in the pasture behind our house. The brown-and-white one was rolling on his back in the mud, then stood up and shook his head and mane wildly back and forth, just like a dog. Two magpies flashed their blue and green undergarments at me. A little while later, 3 camouflage-brown pheasant hens came walking, one after the other, along the fence and disappeared. If they hadn’t been in motion, I wouldn’t have seen them. The ducks from the farm staged a prison break and were roaming in the yard next door. Finally, along came a strutting male pheasant, head held high, obviously looking for his harem.
As the sun was setting, a glorious display of pink and orange and baby blue, flocked with clouds, fat white snowflakes began whirling around. It didn’t look like snow. They didn’t seem to be falling, but flying. At first, I didn’t realize it WAS snow. I thought it was feathers. Just enough to dust the ground and then it stopped and night fell.
Funny Cat Story: Still Life With Squirt Gun
*Mama, you’re allergic! (the word for electric in Swedish is elektrisk, which sounds very similar)