Eating Words: The Hazards Of Journalkeeping

As many of my closer friends and family already know, I've been keeping journals for the past thirty-five years. The journals have changed form over the years as I've learned what works and what doesn't in regards to portability, convenience and such minutiae as line width and paper quality. My penmanship is actually pretty good (though it is getting less so as I age) so it's still pretty practical for me to do my most personal writing in this way.

One of the hazards of writing so much about my feelings is that I'm pretty protective of what I share and with whom I share it. Also, because there are so many handwritten journals now, it's getting a little difficult to keep track of them all and it's finally become apparent to me that I will need some system of cataloguing as I move forward. I'd long ago made a decision to not keep my writings under lock and key. It would have been impossible and even if at times it had been possible, not practical. I try to be discreet about where I place them...but there's always a chance that someone who's very curious can just pick one of them up and start reading. That's what happened when I was fourteen with my first journal.

My mother was nosey. There's really no nice way to put that. Dad often accused her of it. She was regularly opening his mail. Dad made it into a big joke and would call her things like "Miss Nibby Nose" or just "The Nose." This grated on mom's nerves as it struck at her in two ways. First, it was true in the sense that she often looked at things that didn't belong to her and second, she had a prominent physical nose that he often cruelly joked about. He would make snide comments when she would smell natural gas that he couldn't (often from a extinguished pilot light) smell. But, by the summer of my fourteenth year, it would be her nosiness that would cause me enough anguish to destroy my first journal.

I had purchased the journal at the Bradford Mall. There was a bookstore there called Paperback Bookland. This journal had lined pages and was about the size of a thin hardcover. The cover itself--I can still see it--was fabric and shades of deep red and maroon plaid. I laboriously detailed my innermost thoughts on it's pages and was quite proud when I had almost filled it. At that time, I discovered that mom had read portions of (if not all) of it. I'm not exactly sure how that conversation went down but it did--and I was furious! Mom and I weren't exactly on good terms at this point in my life and this certainly didn't make matters much better. In fact, just a year later would be my failed runaway attempt (see my blog titled January 21, 1980) and my strained relationship with both of my parents would have me seeking confidence in other sources. The way that I disposed of the journal was quite ritualistic. I had decided that knowing that my mom had read my innermost thoughts could be erased by burning them. We had a rusty old trash bin located in the farthest part of our backyard by the alley. Dad would burn rubbish in it. I took the journal and folded the two covers back to expose the pages and cover the spine. I took a lit match to them and held it as long as I could until fire consumed most of the flowing pages. I dropped the still burning book into the trash can and watched as the covers eventually burned as well.

When I was not quite yet sixteen, I began to keep another journal. This time, I chose a big, multi-subject ruled paper notebook and I decided right then that if anyone were to ever read my private thoughts again, I would never destroy my writing. I've kept that promise to myself over the years...and there have been plenty of people who've violated my privacy over the years as well. I'm so glad that I didn't destroy anything else. This doesn't mean that I don't cringe occasionally as I read words from a younger me that I no longer recognize.

I've been thinking about sharing some of these writings in this blog.