To Journal or Not to Journal

“Keep track of every day the date emblazoned on yr morning.”  - Jack Kerouac

Ninety years ago Jack Kerouac was born and I’m sure soon after began leaving an interesting legacy to all of us about loving life and keeping it close to our memory. Kerouac may have lived his vision much differently than most of us could, but his words to be vigilant are greatfully received.

I apply Kerouac’s advice to keeping a journal. Yeah, yeah, I know – eighth grade English class or that little locked diary your brother managed to find. No this is a journal, a record of life’s little joys and sorrows and maybe the weather.

My first real journal began as a garden record of that big garden described in the Crunchy Granola book. Somewhere along the entries of how the peas were growing a note slipped in on how the children were growing as well. Soon the children were far more interesting than the stoic vegetables. Once the journal was in gear, there was no stopping the dates emblazoning our mornings and nights deep into the decades of our collective life.

To share the value of recording in a journal with you I started looking back – waay back – and found some funny little pieces, like cherished photographs.  Amid the tremendous task of building a house, birthing a baby, and learning to make cheese, there are the little quips and moments of enlightenment. Here are a couple:

A three and a half year old, feeling secure in her family, watches her father leave the room for a moment. “You’re such a handsome king,” she tells him. Then she looks sweetly at me and says, “You knew that.” Or when she flops over her brother and turns to us, “look, Dad, I caught a turkey.”

Nine year old son was asked one day if he knew what body language is – “Yeah,” he answered, “that’s when your stomach growls at you.”

A magazine article suggesting children write to the President to receive an autographed picture sent our son into a long stare into space when he got the idea – “where are my school pictures?” He was going to trade with the President of the United States. His sister, two years older, exclaimed “Exchange pictures!? With the President?” and burst into a long stream of laughter that followed her through the house.

I found journal entries where the wisdom of the eleven year old first born caused me pause – the baby sister cried wildly when her father cut her toast. Big sister explained calmly to the parents that the baby wanted to eat a hole in the center of the toast first.

It wasn’t always children. Sometimes the journal included worldly issues of the times. I love this one:  In July 1975 the Russians and Americans are performing a milestone in space with the dual experiments of the Soviet  Soyuz and U.S. Apollo space maneuvers.  Meanwhile we are all wrapped up with our own exhausting house building project. Amid these two huge constructions, Joel wakes up one morning to tell me in his half sleep, “There are two great campers up there in the sky, checking out each other’s toilets.”

I had completely forgotten most of these incidents and now these many years later with adult children cuddling their own babies, I embrace the vision of them giggling in front of me. I cherish recorded mile markers in time, “14 years married next week”, “its been 28 years with my good friend, my partner, my love”. It has been many more years since then. These scratchings on paper remind me of the treasure in keeping a journal.

Warning: in this search I also discovered the down side of recording passionate thoughts in the journal – words of wisdom (or so I thought at the time) that are meaningless and boring.  Or worse, opinions about people and life that my ego wanted to share, opinions flopping around in the muddle of youth, my youth that show an immaturity that surprises me.  

Keeping a journal is definitely a personal preference, but overall, if anyone reads these when I have “passed”, I hope they enjoy the jokes and bypass the rest. Thanks, Jack, for the advice.

Please check out the e-book, A Homestead Decade How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life,(Amazon Kindle Book) to help understand the basis of this blog. It was great fun to write. The journals are the backbone to the memory.

Talk with you again soon.

Helene

WILD LIFE ADVENTURES IN THE HOMESTEAD

Yes, we had sheep, chickens, a horse, and of course goats – funny goats, but we don’t often hear about the wild animal surprises that graced our country life. Here are a few that linger lovingly and humorously in my memory.

One morning after the children left for school I heard an exceptionally loud buzzing and slapping against the enclosed porch windows. On checking I found what I thought was a large bee slamming the solar windows to get out. A closer look revealed a terrified emerald-throated hummingbird. For a few minutes the bird eluded my grasp. I grabbed a straw hat and carefully laid the head space of the hat over his resting exhausted body and tried to consider my next move. Soon the tiny bird was in my cupped hands. The truth of this situation ran goose-bumpy through me – a hummingbird, I was holding a hummingbird in my hands. His heart raced and yes we did make a moment of breathless eye contact. Hoping he was not injured, I carefully took him outside and thrust him into the air, to freedom. He flew to a tree and quickly began to clean the human off of his beautiful feathers. In another minute he was gone.

On that same porch, before it was completed, I sat on the steps in a moment of quiet meditation when I saw the slow creep of a long thin gardener snake moving along the cool cement. As I watched he slowed his pace and then stopped. He lifted two inches of his back end straight up. What the heck, I thought. Then I saw a small wet dribble rolling away from his body on the floor. After urinating he dropped his “tail” and continued his journey to the edge of the unfinished wall and out into the ground around the porch construction.  We receive many surprise gifts in our lives, but, honestly, how many times do you get to see a snake pee?

Then there was the great brown and black wild turkey who spotted a smaller lighter brown female foraging around the yard. This magnificent creature became immediately excited at the presence of the beautiful girl turkey -his withers turned bright red and the nodules on his head turned a brilliant blue. He dropped his large wings to show the full color spectrum. His white-tipped tail fanned out and he began a kind of Flamenco dance around the lady. She, of course, ignored him, moving slowly toward the woods. Without losing a step he danced across the stage of our yard following her. I watched them disappear into the woods - him dancing, her ignoring.

One night after a school concert we pulled into our driveway catching Vivian our cat in the headlights as she casually sauntered to greet us. We were not the only ones watching her. Just as we walked toward our little white and gray short haired friend, a great owl swooped out of the tree toward her. He was so intent on his prey he had not noticed our approach. Startled, he shot over our heads so close we could feel the rush of wind from his broad wings.

There are so many wild life stories, we’ll have to get together another time to share some of these. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you get a chance to read the memoir, A Homestead Decade How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, for a healthy dose of country living experiences, Amazon Kindle e-book $2.99.  

Helene