Writing, Writing

Jason Baker's notes on the life of Franz Kafka, published alongside Donna Freed's translation of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, explain that Kafka's decision in 1910 to keep a regular diary "lends a discipline and seriousness to his writing." I hope to develop this same discipline and seriousness through the keeping of my own journals, both private and public. I'm pretty good with seriousness: like they say, dying is easy, comedy is hard. Discipline is where I struggle.

Do you ever sit there and look at a word and realize, although English is your mother tongue and you have known and seen this word since you were small, that you don't actually know how to spell it? I had such a moment just now with "develop." Does it have an e on the end? Doesn't it look naked and abrupt ending just on p?

I have countless journals. I appreciate the promise of a blank page. Journaling captures the tiny details that otherwise just kind of evaporate. It's nsettling, I think, just how much of our lives we forget.

Anyway, here are some of the entries I've written over the years.

December 12, 2010

She was my first girlfried ... brown-eyed, brown-haired, a lover of manga. Exuberant. Shy, sometimes.

She told me all of her secrets. I told her all of mine. We used to talk for hours on the phone. ... She frustrated me. She would not fight for herself. Not to her parents. Not for me.

She used to meet me every morning, embrace me, kiss me hello and goodbye. She drew me pictures. I drew her pictures. We wrote each other poems.

I would have loved to have done so much more with her. Taken her places. Shown her things. Shared. I drew two hearts on the calendar on the day she asked me out.

We don't talk as often, now.

June 13th, 2010

[My boyfriend at the time] went back to Worcester again -- and again without saying good-bye. You would think that I would be used to this by now. And maybe I am. It still kind of stings, but by now at least I expect it. What is the point of calling me and telling me that he would be home soon, of saying over and over again that he means to be home on weekends, of talking about "seeing you" and so on -- what is the point if he never intends to stop by for so much as a handshake? I mean, if I was the one going away all the time, the first thing I would do when I got back would be to go see my significant other. I'd make time for him. Whatever it took, I'd be there. I can't help but feel unwanted.

June 15, 2011

"This book is a mirror of your spiritual life."

Scott Cunningham defined the four tools of effective self-teaching as: study, thought, prayer, and experimentation.

As for study: books are powerful tools of change. Each is a different teacher. Each teacher has distinct ideas concerning the subject matter taught. Pick -- discern truth from nontruth -- find what feels right. Question everything -- be creative in your research.

January 12th, 2012

It's 7:27 AM -- I woke up at 4:30 this morning. It's the first day that I'm 19 -- and my flight is 1901.

2012, and I'm listening to Petros Tabouris perform a Homeric hymn to Demeter on my iPod.

Ten minutes until we begin to board, and it's lightening outside. It was pitch black when my Dad and I left this morning, and raining. I've been waiting since 6 AM, or 0600 military time. It reminded me of driving to MIT for ROTC, earlier last semester. Yellow light and cityscape.

I woke [my boyfriend at the time] up by calling. I miss him already. I'll be honest, though, I've spent the past 3.5 years missing him.

The coffee at Logan Airport is a little dark, but hot, and that's all I honestly care about this morning.

Cloudy skies outside -- that early-rainy-morning underwater blue. The planes look brooding, almost predatory.

There are more folks here now -- grown men and women on Macs and iPads, reading books and the Boston Globe, eating bagels. Kids drinking sodad and peering over seats. Here and there, a teenager. I guess I count as a teenager still. So there's at least one teenager scribbing in a journal.

April 5th, 2013.

I was assigned a little girl named Addie to observe [on a Developmental Psychology class project at a nearby preschool]. She was [laying with a girl named Rachel -- playing tea, playing house, playing tuck-me-in-and-kiss-me six times in a row. I remember her little body crouched over the other girl, protective, affectionate.

May 6th, 2013.

The pretty girl with dyed red hair is here in class today. She was absent this past week.

I have two exams tomorrow. I have spent today, after Memory class, reading Warm Bodies -- reading quickly, haphazardly, my version of falling in love, isn't it? 200 pages. Dancing to Halestorm as well. Rock Show.

My professor brought us cookies.

This [Psychology] class actually depresses me. My professor and classmates discuss mental illness with a mocking, cavalier tone that I find unprofessional. Sometimes it jsut makes me feel tired. Unaccepted, too. Watching my words. Feeling different.

November 6th, 2014

I am having tea with my grandparents at El Table while it rains outside. This [journal] was my present just now from my grandparents. The bright pink is comforting.

I cried earlier today on the swing. Things are fucked. I'm not completely sure how I'm going to unfuck them. But the best I can do is try.

I feel lost and sad. This fall has hurt me.

January 25th 2015

This evening is Jack's last night in Massachusetts. It would have been my last night before the spring semester if I had not been put on conditional medical leave. A historic snowstorm is due to begin tomorrow.

I washed my hair earlier. It smells fresh. I made ginger chai for the both of us. It has quickly become my favorite drink.

July 12th, 2015

Note to self: buy more ginger chai.

#journalkeeping #Kafka