Just a few days ago, while poking through the dust and partially used items at one of my favorite second hand shops I found a small diary.
I often find diaries at second hand shops. Most have never seen a written word inside of their many pages of possible thoughts, feelings, and dreams. Most are about five inches wide, seven inches tall, and have perhaps 190 ruled pages for thoughts and ideas.
While I am mostly on the hunt for blank paged sketch books, I purchase many of these diaries to use in drafting poems and story ideas while away from home.
But on this day, the dairy I found was unique. First, it was much smaller than the normal, being maybe 3 inches wide by 5 inches tall. Then there was the fact that it was much thicker with 250 or more ruled pages (double sided). And all in all, each page had room for perhaps a total of 30 inches of writing while the typical diary offers more like 120 or more inches of line. And finally, the dairy was titled; “Daily Memorable Moment”.
Thinking: “this will be a fun way to pen a few words each day” I happily paid the $1 being asked and took the little diary home.
Now I have been a storyteller most all of my life. And along with being granted a fanciful imagination, I have lived with a positive outlook and been gifted with a textual memory that holds and feels details years and decades after an event.
I’ve written stories and poems; Recounted adventures and pain, Explained morals and desires, and hungers, and gains.
And yet, when I sat down the first many nights to record my memorable moment, I found myself struggling to find a positive worthy personal experience that had happened that day to record. Oh, the first night was not too difficult, I wrote of finding the dairy and getting it for such a reasonable price that even my Dutch forbearers would be proud.
And the second night I noted the feeling of progress as I prepared for a garage sale (feeling good about clearing some clutter out of my life.
The third day was harder, I thought and reviewed my feelings, my experiences of the day, and had to finally settle for a brief note about the joy I get driving my 50 year old VW around and seeing people smile as I pass.
But the fourth night had me stymied.
I sat, blank minded for what felt like an eternity, reaching back over the day, reviewing from above, beyond, and before each of the moments of that day. And sill I came to grasp at empty air each time I tried to firm up a single experience that had left a memorable impact on me. That day.
The more I thought, the blanker my mind became; until at some point, it drifted out of my head altogether and simply left me sitting there.
For long minutes I was simply blank. My mind prepared no colors, no feelings, no ideas.
And Slowly I came to understand the core of the problem.
I like all those other “empty diarists” and much of the adult population of the planet had forgotten how to find memorable in the day to day existence of life.
What a troubling understanding that was.
In my life, I a strong storyteller had allowed my life to slip out beyond my living. Sure, I woke up each day and tended to the things that needed doing, but in the tending, the demands had all become “mundane” and disappointing. Leaving my life “memorable-less”.
What a blow to life that is.
The next day, I dug through some of my many dairies and found a set of three that are all alike, same pages, same colors, same covers; triplets.
And I have set about on a mission, a mission to leave behind not only the stories that I have told, or the thoughts that I have formalized such as this, but each day, the unique, the creative, the projects and the feelings that cumulatively mark my passing through this world.
Perhaps they will be inspirational after I am gone, perhaps they will never be read by a living being after I scratch pen across paper.
But in the writing, nightly, ritualistically, I have brought back into my mind the ability to find joy, wonder, and awe in the world around me.
© Copyright 2020, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved.
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