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...i'm building a garden, to sing me to sleep...
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "...she's oleacae..." journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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05:46 pm
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New Project
When I start missin' you, I think about the tree down the street we liked. The tree was younger then like us, I guess. Twenty years ain't nothing to a human though and it sure as hell ain't nothing to a tree. We couldn't carve our names into it or nothin' but we could walk by it and love it for its honesty, it's beauty, the way its heavy arms defeated gravity every moment of the day, the unexhaustable beauty it grasped. There was something we could not possess even though we collected its needles, its cones. Though those old damn cones always fell apart later, being it the kinda tree that produced cones to fall apart and fly away. It would never know its humans or nothing but maybe that's what it was all about: lettin' go. Those needles were prickly little things too. I don't think we ever properly identified it like we thought we would either. After collecting over and over again, sneaking around someone's yard we never met. You think at some point we'd want to meet the planters or even think of 'em but come to think of it now, I never thought of any of that. Tree's been pruned now. Growin' old and sloppy the owners just clip and trim until it looks all perfect again but I've heard it woulda looked just fine in the first place if they'd never of touched it at all. Feel like I've been pruned too. Everything I've lost feels like a limb. But humans the lucky ones, ya see. They got a million limbs just like those big old trees and they lose 'em too but no one ever sees 'em. Not a one. No, we humans got a lot of secrets. When we lose enough limbs, we just look kinda heavy and sunken. We get a look about our eyes and our skin sort of turns until we die altogether. We all old now, I guess. Eighty years is a lot to a human but it ain't nothin' to a tree. Now I go visit the beast with a hint of embarrassment, the eyes of that ancient creature still young. I think now about those planters and all the others that'll see this thing one day. I think about it a lot now, think about all those things I never thought of, and nothing comforts me like lookin' at that tree. Yes, so young and still so brave defying gravity and all. So young and so brave and much more willin' than I ever was to lose all those limbs and still be beautiful.
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01:53 pm
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how i feel today!
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11:57 am
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Rough Draft of main part of presentation for this weekend's journaling workshop---so nervous!!
"I’ve been journaling in one form or another since I was a little kid. This(pick up tiny red journal) is actually my first journal. I was a little unsure about the idea for a long time before I finally went for it and I wrote very small entries so this little journal lasted for years. What began to happen though was a realization that reflection was more than just remembering what happened to me that day. Reflection turned me into a collector and you can see traces of the beginnings to that concept even in this first journal. I taped some of my last lost teeth in here. It meant more to me to collect those teeth rather than trade them in for money from the tooth fairy. I was starting to place the meaning of moments in my life into the objects within that time. Words were not enough. So here’s my first collection journal. This lasted up until high school when I started my second collection. And the power of these journals is always discovered when looking back.
First thing you need to think about when entering the world of reflection is that you are communicating with your future self. This second collection journal was built on a promise never to remove anything from it. You can’t always trust your present instincts on what’s important. Going beyond words has a way of diminishing the possibility of your future self not respecting the past, which is something that we’re scared of: our future self making fun of us. I can’t stand to read the journals that I wrote in during these time periods. In middle school, my written journals were dramatic, focused on boys, focused on things that don’t tell me about what I was really like inside. Whereas, these collections tell me about the heart and soul of me during these times. These journals are my faces of honesty. You have to be honest in reflection. The whole point of reflecting is, in the end, to know yourself.
And why is this important? To know yourself gives you the ability to know others. You will never be able to know anyone any better than you know yourself. So you can ask yourself how far you’re willing to go.
But what is this doing for the world? This is my favorite part. All of this up here, these journals, paintings, this diorama, all of it is my personal history. And each journal, each painting is an artifact. I can study the culture of myself by looking at each of these artifacts, by studying them. Other people can study my culture through these artifacts as well. And the people I want to do this are my family. I want to add to the history of my family. Generations from now, these artifacts will communicate my culture, my life. And so, if there becomes a family history, that effects the history of this area of the world. Think of each of us reflecting on our pasts throughout our lives and think of that domino effect of generations passing by, creating family histories. That mass of knowledge becomes a cultural history of our civilization. We are, in fact, impacting the history of the world during this time period.
That seems huge, but think about it this way. What we know of past cultures and their civilizations comes from what they revealed to us in art and writing. So when I talked earlier about reflection being a communication portal for your present self and your future self, it’s also about communicating with future generations of our species. A personal history impacts family history, which, in turn, impacts the history of our national culture, our world culture, our species. My favorite part of studying history is always the really nitty-gritty details of everyday life. I don’t like generalizing an entire period of time. I like to know about the dramas, the way rooms looked, the way people spoke, and what they ate. That’s the power of people like you and me reflecting."
Feel inspired?
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08:15 pm
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Travelling
So much movement!
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04:46 pm
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So Ridiculous
I'm in Bellingham right now. I was supposed to drive down to my mother's in Seattle and play diorama today, but someone double parked me!!!! I worked on some other projects and went for a long walk. They finally left but now I'm not leaving until tomorrow.
The walk was beautiful. You'd love Boulevard Park, I think; it's right along the water. The sky was like a watercolor painting as the sun set. Now to stretch and work on p-er-o-jects.
p.s. do you think you'd ever want to send me a business card, Ms. Gidseg? I might need a photographer some day, you know---that'll be one way to get you up here :)
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12:24 pm
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Diorama!
I'm going to make a diorama today! With photographs from a road trip my mom and I took this summer over to Idaho. It wasn't actually the best trip ever...but I don't want to ignore it and, gees, regardless, we really took great photos.
I will post the finished product!
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06:10 pm
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Lonely
It is stranger than I thought it would be to have over half of my stuff in storage, to not really have a place that is entirely for me. I roam from Dan's to Mom's and now I'll be off to Sarah's in Portland for a couple weeks---if you write me, send it to 716 N. Russett St, Portland OR 97217. I'll be in one place and wish for the things in the others or just feel frustrated with the lifestyle. Suitcases. A trashed car. I don't think I'll get much work done on my novel the way I thought I would living like this. Here and there. But I can say that I see it in its entirety now, I see everything clearly.
Today I went up to the school campus to work. I ended up working on "Eventual" a short memoir piece about a friend of mine---remember Jason??---telling me a story of an accident he was in when he was younger...did I ever show you that one? It's the greatest thing I've ever written. I think it's finally done. I can't decide if I'll try to just get it published as a story or try to create a small book of memoirs. There aren't too many literary journals that publish memoir pieces. It's almost worth submitting it as fiction, but it's just not fiction. I just don't know if I have any other memoir ideas that would work with this one. I've thought of "These Men I Have Known" but I can't remember all the stories I've known from boys. Any ideas?
I also worked on some other nonfiction pieces but they aren't anywhere near the same, just essays. I tried to work on a poem but couldn't feel it.
I guess the novel scares me. So I'm reading "War and Peace" which is supposed to be the definitive novel of all time. I'm a hundred pages in. It really is incredible.
I wish we lived closer. I wish I would have been a better friend in Austin. So lonely now.
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05:14 pm
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Roommates
So you'll relate to this.
I moved in with Dan, who lives with four other people, one, of which, is hated by everyone in the house. The house decided to try to get her evicted but the landlord won't do it. Strangely enough, he said that he's going to kick everyone out if anyone tries to leave because of this one roommate.
That's insane. The roommate everyone hates knows this. And she still won't leave.
Just wild stuff.
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09:44 am
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New dress!
see that flower behind me, the art on the wall? dan drew that. he always puts it down by saying he was copying a georgia o'keefe, but i don't think i could even copy. i remember in art class at my first elementary school, we had a georgia o'keefe week where we had to draw a giant bull's skull. i remember wishing i could do it because i could see everything so well in my mind.
the fog here is so thick today. i'll write you about it :) today is letter day !
p.s. i'm reading gene wilder's autobiography, it's very strange. he spent a bit in the army for two years in the fifties and ended up working as an aide in a mental hospital helping with electroshock. at the time he was compulsively praying all the time for no reason and he wondered if he was crazy too. i read Steve Martin's autobiography and Billy Crystal's. i've always found comedians to be so intriguing.
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01:08 pm
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How Am I...
Well, I have one more week, techinically about 5 more days at this job. Then, I'm jobless for 3 months. I'm supposed to be writing out goals for that time period. I want to work on getting my poetry submitted to magazines, finishing my children's book concept en masse and get that ready for submission, and I mostly want to work on my novel. People ask me what it's about but my job is not to sum it up, it's to write it down.
After my time off, I'm going back to school. I applied on Friday to the local community college.
I'm getting my laptop fixed from the accident for a hundred bucks, which is nice. I think. I don't like to look at the laptop, makes it all too real. Sarah made me a poster to put up around town to find the woman that hit me. I don't know how to explain to her why I don't want to without feeling weak.
My mother and sister both had some strange news this past week. My mother found out that an old friend from her childhood died in a car accident. He was still friends with my mom's sister's family. And then Sarah found out that a friend of hers back in Austin died in a train/car accident. She was trying to find her new number by calling the store that her friend worked at last time they talked. Her friend's number had been disconnected for quite a while and she finally decided to just call the store...and one of the people that worked there told her that she'd died about year and a half ago. All that time not knowing. http://www.kvue.com/news/local/stories/011808kvuetraincrash-bm.360daef8.html
Makes you want to just go for whatever impulse you have to contact someone.
So I feel all mixed up as usual. And I wish we were penpals. Just write me a note on a scrap of paper, anything. Or doodle. Or send me a leaf.
I'm going to schedule my Austin trip soon. Some time in December.
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duckwax's journal