“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
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