Masks

I'm a journaler. Have been since high school. I have an entire storage bin filled with old journals. Unlike Natalie Goldberg, who states that she routinely burns old notebooks, I cannot bring myself to destroy any of them. I find it useful to be able to go back to a particular year to look something up, and it can also be interesting to randomly pull out a volume and read what was going on in my life during that period. Sometimes I'll remember the events clearly, other times I have an, "Oh my God, I forgot about that!" moment.

This afternoon as I was working on something sort of writing related, I found myself wondering if I had a volume from a certain year that could verify a fact. Not only did I find the appropriate journal and subsequent entry, I found myself skimming pages from my high school years for more than an hour. A few of the recorded conversations with friends had me laughing while some of the writing had me groaning. I used to write scads of poetry. We're talking tons. Most of it was pretty awful (hence the groaning), but there was some that was pretty good. There are also a lot of beginnings of short stories, but few completed works.

I also found a couple of sketches doodled inide these notebooks. Yes, notebooks. These days I prefer 5.5 x 8.75 hardback spiral journals. During those early years I usually used college ruled notebooks. They were cheap and blended in with the regular class notebooks. Thankfully, I never lost a one, though it was many years before a few friends (AT, CB, KB) forgave me for a certain group notebook being stolen from my locker freshman year. It contained some group writings and -- at that time -- incriminating "surveys." At the time we were mortified, wondering how they got into my locker, who could have taken it, and what might happen as a result. We never did find out and, thankfully, nothing came of it. Were we the characters of some TV show or teen movie, the contents of those notebooks would have been all over the school. Thank the merciful heavens that was pre-internet and cell phones! Now, we would probably laugh and groan over the contents of that notebook. At the time, though, it was quite serious.

Anyway, this is one of the pages scanned from one of those ancient journals. I don't remember doing these, and have no idea why I did, what they were for, or what prompted them. Maybe I was listening to The Stranger too much. I have no idea. Click on the pic for a larger view.