It's one of the journals I keep in addition to this blog, my journal, and my book journal. I don't usually carry it on me, but it's there, on my bookshelf, waiting to be added to when something catches my attention or consulted when I need advice.
In it among the poems, song lyrics, proverbs, bon mots, and other intellectual flotsam, is a list that I'm saving for the children in my life--whether those children end up being biological kids or the ones to whom I am an aunt in some capacity--it's a list full grown-up advice that I wish someone had taught me.
***
A couple of articles from The Atlantic have caught my attention recently. One of the them talks about what Freud termed "Screen Memories," or memories of events that never actually happened (which in itself happens with surprising frequency). The second discusses how depression impacts our memories and impairs our ability to form memories. The articles catch my attention for a couple reasons. The first is that I want to understand the science behind how our memories are formed (and, consequently, how we can manage to create false memories).
The second reason I am drawn to the articles is incredibly self-serving.
I, well, I don't make my living as a memoirist, but I devote a significant amount of time to first-person writing about my life and experiences. And until recently, I had stopped keeping a journal for myself, so any record I have of the past five years has to be pieced together from entries here, emails, and my memory.
As high school history teachers love to pronounce, those who do not to understand history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah, brilliant, thanks AP history. But what the fuck are you supposed to do when the history itself is in question?
The issue, of course, is an obvious one, the kind that you would ask while awake past 2am in a dorm. But regardless of the fact that it's a little sophomoric, it's still deeply troubling to me.
Without the aid of my journal, everything about the past year--past five years, really--has a certain air of based upon a true story about it. Which is precisely what I do not want when thinking about my life as a writer or even as someone trying to keep from making the same mistakes year after year.
As high school history teachers love to pronounce, those who do not to understand history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah, brilliant, thanks AP history. But what the fuck are you supposed to do when the history itself is in question?
The issue, of course, is an obvious one, the kind that you would ask while awake past 2am in a dorm. But regardless of the fact that it's a little sophomoric, it's still deeply troubling to me.
Without the aid of my journal, everything about the past year--past five years, really--has a certain air of based upon a true story about it. Which is precisely what I do not want when thinking about my life as a writer or even as someone trying to keep from making the same mistakes year after year.
***
I expected adulthood to be more fun.
I did. Even as I was transitioning into it, I anticipated that it would be good dates with charming, brilliant men who would automatically adore me. I thought it would be gala nonprofit events and saving the world and paying off my student loans with ease. I thought it would be learning to salsa dance and have sexy hips despite being a Midwesterner with a negative sense of rhythm.
Now with the benefit of a few years of actual adulthood under my belt, I realize that there was something terribly inevitable about working incredibly hard for a nonprofit salary, about worrying over things like cholesterol and blood sugar, about budgeting and menu planning, about doing strengthening exercises for my weak and decidedly unsexy hips, about all the tedious stuff that comprises being a grown-up.
Recently I asked a group of my friends "When was the last time you thought to yourself 'I really enjoy being an adult?'"
There were a variety of answers. Last weekend, when I was out until 3am dancing. When I proposed to my fiancee. When our daughter was born.
I have two answers to the question. One I will take to my grave. My second, and the one that I give when they turn the question back on me is:
"Some time in late August. I had just moved into my new place and decided to bake a chocolate cake for no reason. I spent the evening baking, listening to Miles Davis, and when I was finished I sat down and had watermelon for dinner."
"What the hell kind of an answer is that?"
"A true one."
Here's the truth, at least, as far as I can recall it.
The past year has been insane.
I didn't realize how insane it was until I sat down and started (self-indulgently) to go through the writing I did from August 2012 (mental health diagnosis) until present (revisiting mental health diagnosis). Revisiting those writings hasn't been about fussing about the writing (that's happened) or being excessively proud of a particular piece (that's happened too). It's been about reading the piece and thinking "Jesus. Next time say yes to the free trip to New Orleans right away." or "Avoid doing the tarantella on someone's heart."
It's the first time I've been able to look back on a period of my life say "Yes, this is when I learned what it means to be a grown-up."
"A true one."
***
Here's the truth, at least, as far as I can recall it.
The past year has been insane.
I didn't realize how insane it was until I sat down and started (self-indulgently) to go through the writing I did from August 2012 (mental health diagnosis) until present (revisiting mental health diagnosis). Revisiting those writings hasn't been about fussing about the writing (that's happened) or being excessively proud of a particular piece (that's happened too). It's been about reading the piece and thinking "Jesus. Next time say yes to the free trip to New Orleans right away." or "Avoid doing the tarantella on someone's heart."
It's the first time I've been able to look back on a period of my life say "Yes, this is when I learned what it means to be a grown-up."
***
The true measure of a good cook is what they can make on a budget, so learn to be inventive in the kitchen early. Know the warning signs of abusive relationships and how to leave them. Cheap alcohol gives you terrible hangovers. "Your life must been a open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in." Work and vocation are not the same thing, learn the difference. There is no substitute for good jazz. Go to funerals. When two people you love divorce, remain friends with both of them if possible. Read a poem every day. Learn what to do when you say "I love you" and the other person says "I don't love you." Break up with people (friendships, relationships, family) carefully. You will occasionally inhabit a universe where 1+3=a pineapple, and rationality will not touch it.
This is how my grown-up advice page in the Commonplace Book starts.
***
I'm in the middle of unpacking the last of my non-book boxes this afternoon (one of those tedious, adult tasks that I never quite seem to get around to), thinking about memory and writing, considering the past year and the growing up that's happened, when a poem by William Stafford pops into my head and makes me realize that regardless of how events in the past year actually occurred, the growing up that I did, those lessons I carefully noted in my Commonplace Book are all still true.
I set the pile of boxes next to the door and grab the Commonplace Book off the shelf. On the page next to the grown-up advice, I start another list. "Adult Life Will Not Always Be Fun: Some of the Inevitably Tedious Things You Will Have to Accomplish." The list is, of course, easier to make than I would wish, but at the end of it, I smile, hoping that in the future some wide-eyed 18 year old will read it, scoff, and hopefully still take away a piece of advice or two.
Before I close the book I turn back to grown-up advice and add a few lines. Don't trust your memory, keep a journal. Looking back years late you may find that it contains someone's terribly inevitable life story. Maybe your own.
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