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My Mom journaled
So today as I was searching for my copy of the Artist's Way (which some of my troupemates and I are going to be doing together (again for some of us)), I walked past the stack of plastic boxes which had been passed on to me from my Mom on our last visit. In our family, we didn't have scrapbooks or anything so organized. We had "memory boxes". Basically, everyone had a cardboard box where anything you achieved was thrown into. Report cards, certificates of achievement, essays, birthday cards, pictures you drew, notes, photographs... They all would get crumpled and torn over the years, but that didn't seem to be an issue when considering changing systems.
So I opened mine. Or what was mostly mine. Over time, looks like a lot of cross-pollination took place, and there were some memorabilia from all my siblings in there along with my stuff. And then I came across some cards from my Dad to my Mom. And I found some notes that seemed to be pieces of a scavenger hunt my Dad had assembled for my Mom at some time, and a little handmade heart with a promise for a backrub from Mom to Dad. I felt like I was peering in on something intensely private, and at the same time, sad that my Mom wanted to throw all of this "out" by tossing it into my memory box and pushing it off onto me.
One discovery made me take pause, and is ringing in my mind right now. My father's handwriting is just as distinct as my Mother's, and completely the opposite. While my Mom has swirling script, my Father always wrote in all-caps. Precise, boxy lettering. And he never wrote much. Even in anniversary cards, he never wrote more than "Love, Me" at the bottom. No extra note. And he always signed it "Me". So it was surprising to find a small notecard--the kind that accompanies flower arrangements--written in his stilted unpracticed cursive, which he almost never used. It read, "Honey, You deserve so much more. Me."
My mind races. What circumstance inspired him to write such a self-deprecating note? What was he apologizing for? What had he done? Or not done? What had she said? Imagining my Father in some emotional state where he believed himself to be unworthy of my Mother, or somehow incapable of giving her the life he (or she?) felt she deserved...it breaks me heart. And felt like some kind of insight into his suicide all those years later... but maybe I am reading too much into one little note. I just know it made me well up with tears as I studied it, and makes my chest feel tight to picture it now in my mind's eye...
And then I realize that maybe the card meant "You deserve so much more (than just these flowers)". And the tightness doesn't go away. Because I realize that his suicide has made me approach every piece of memorabilia with the eye of some kind of detective. I am filled with a degree melancholy and suspicion as I dig through these memories, as if searching for a clue to the mystery. I read into everything. The tiniest notes make me feel connected to him, and at the same time remind me that I didn't really ever know what was in his heart and he feels even further away than you believe even death could carry someone...
I also found some "journals" of my Mom's. I had no idea she ever journaled anything. But here they were, funny little spiral-bound memo books with her clean cursive writing I recognize anyplace. And the entries are very short, and mostly matter-of-fact.
"Oct 11th
Left this morning for Honolulu. G&G came out to the airport--so did Daddy on his way to Newark. Arrived Honolulu at 12:30. Went to Holiday Inn. Kids swam in the afternoon, ate at the hotel restaurant. Didn't attempt to make flight as TE-11 was canceled. No room for us."
I continued reading, and found this was an account of the month-long trip she took me and brother on to New Zealand when I was about 7 years old. The entries were brief throughout, a few days apart throughout the trip. Now, I know for a fact that my Mom was completely harassed by the husband of a friend we went to stay with at one point during our trip. Sicker still, it was when his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their third child, and my Mom was helping take care of the kids and house while she was away. But the short little entries reveal nothing. Sure, they relate, in two sentences, how we went to see the Queen Mother walk down Queens Way, and that the Prince himself walked right up and touched my hand and smiled at me while I waved my New Zealand flag with zeal. She shares a couple lines about our walks to the bakery each morning, and our long day on One Tree Hill, playing in the park. How Brian and I were loving tea every day, and out on the farm how we loved the fresh milk and butter. But she was nearly attacked by her friend's husband, and she doesn't note it anywhere?
Which got me thinking about the nature of journaling, and associated blogging, and wondering "Who is this for?" And if it is for us, how honest are we in our writing, and how much of what we write is revisionist, in that we only write what we want to remember, and avoid writing about the things that we might later be sad about or even ashamed of.
I have stacks of hand-written journals I have kept for years. I no longer write in a hand-written journal, because frankly it is too slow for me. All my life I found it frustrating that my hand couldn't write as fast as thoughts came to me, and my hand would invariably cramp up at some inopportune time. Add to that the fact that with the advent of blogging, my focus in writing changed to be able to not only record my thoughts and experiences for myself, but to share them with friends so we can keep up with one another. Which changes the nature of the writing significantly. I look at some of my handwritten journals, and I cringe at times at some of the harsh honesty and embarrassing details contained therein (I am reminded that my father always told me that if I ever got famous, I should burn my journals. At times, I consider doing it anyway...). And then I look at my fairly sterile-by-comparison LJ, and realize I don't really write for me any more. I do, but it is censored and focused in such a way that it is more revisionist than I may have realized before today...before finding my Mom's journal.
Thing is, I am not sure who my Mom would have been writing her journal for. But I an inclined to believe it was just for herself. And she chose not to tell her own tale honestly. I wonder why...
So I opened mine. Or what was mostly mine. Over time, looks like a lot of cross-pollination took place, and there were some memorabilia from all my siblings in there along with my stuff. And then I came across some cards from my Dad to my Mom. And I found some notes that seemed to be pieces of a scavenger hunt my Dad had assembled for my Mom at some time, and a little handmade heart with a promise for a backrub from Mom to Dad. I felt like I was peering in on something intensely private, and at the same time, sad that my Mom wanted to throw all of this "out" by tossing it into my memory box and pushing it off onto me.
One discovery made me take pause, and is ringing in my mind right now. My father's handwriting is just as distinct as my Mother's, and completely the opposite. While my Mom has swirling script, my Father always wrote in all-caps. Precise, boxy lettering. And he never wrote much. Even in anniversary cards, he never wrote more than "Love, Me" at the bottom. No extra note. And he always signed it "Me". So it was surprising to find a small notecard--the kind that accompanies flower arrangements--written in his stilted unpracticed cursive, which he almost never used. It read, "Honey, You deserve so much more. Me."
My mind races. What circumstance inspired him to write such a self-deprecating note? What was he apologizing for? What had he done? Or not done? What had she said? Imagining my Father in some emotional state where he believed himself to be unworthy of my Mother, or somehow incapable of giving her the life he (or she?) felt she deserved...it breaks me heart. And felt like some kind of insight into his suicide all those years later... but maybe I am reading too much into one little note. I just know it made me well up with tears as I studied it, and makes my chest feel tight to picture it now in my mind's eye...
And then I realize that maybe the card meant "You deserve so much more (than just these flowers)". And the tightness doesn't go away. Because I realize that his suicide has made me approach every piece of memorabilia with the eye of some kind of detective. I am filled with a degree melancholy and suspicion as I dig through these memories, as if searching for a clue to the mystery. I read into everything. The tiniest notes make me feel connected to him, and at the same time remind me that I didn't really ever know what was in his heart and he feels even further away than you believe even death could carry someone...
I also found some "journals" of my Mom's. I had no idea she ever journaled anything. But here they were, funny little spiral-bound memo books with her clean cursive writing I recognize anyplace. And the entries are very short, and mostly matter-of-fact.
"Oct 11th
Left this morning for Honolulu. G&G came out to the airport--so did Daddy on his way to Newark. Arrived Honolulu at 12:30. Went to Holiday Inn. Kids swam in the afternoon, ate at the hotel restaurant. Didn't attempt to make flight as TE-11 was canceled. No room for us."
I continued reading, and found this was an account of the month-long trip she took me and brother on to New Zealand when I was about 7 years old. The entries were brief throughout, a few days apart throughout the trip. Now, I know for a fact that my Mom was completely harassed by the husband of a friend we went to stay with at one point during our trip. Sicker still, it was when his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their third child, and my Mom was helping take care of the kids and house while she was away. But the short little entries reveal nothing. Sure, they relate, in two sentences, how we went to see the Queen Mother walk down Queens Way, and that the Prince himself walked right up and touched my hand and smiled at me while I waved my New Zealand flag with zeal. She shares a couple lines about our walks to the bakery each morning, and our long day on One Tree Hill, playing in the park. How Brian and I were loving tea every day, and out on the farm how we loved the fresh milk and butter. But she was nearly attacked by her friend's husband, and she doesn't note it anywhere?
Which got me thinking about the nature of journaling, and associated blogging, and wondering "Who is this for?" And if it is for us, how honest are we in our writing, and how much of what we write is revisionist, in that we only write what we want to remember, and avoid writing about the things that we might later be sad about or even ashamed of.
I have stacks of hand-written journals I have kept for years. I no longer write in a hand-written journal, because frankly it is too slow for me. All my life I found it frustrating that my hand couldn't write as fast as thoughts came to me, and my hand would invariably cramp up at some inopportune time. Add to that the fact that with the advent of blogging, my focus in writing changed to be able to not only record my thoughts and experiences for myself, but to share them with friends so we can keep up with one another. Which changes the nature of the writing significantly. I look at some of my handwritten journals, and I cringe at times at some of the harsh honesty and embarrassing details contained therein (I am reminded that my father always told me that if I ever got famous, I should burn my journals. At times, I consider doing it anyway...). And then I look at my fairly sterile-by-comparison LJ, and realize I don't really write for me any more. I do, but it is censored and focused in such a way that it is more revisionist than I may have realized before today...before finding my Mom's journal.
Thing is, I am not sure who my Mom would have been writing her journal for. But I an inclined to believe it was just for herself. And she chose not to tell her own tale honestly. I wonder why...
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