Deja Vu: Remembering the Past

        The Deja Vu Blogfest has become an annual event hosted by D.L. Hammons.   This is the time when bloggers can rerun a neglected or favorite blogpost from the previous year in hopes that more will see it.  In the case of Wrote By Rote I also have an opportunity to try to reach more people who might not be familiar with my memoir blog.   I hope you enjoy today's look back and that you will return to read future posts.  My regular posting schedule for this blog is each Saturday.










Tee and Cara   "Keeping Track"  (1968)

     --a note about the music:  Tee and Cara's As They Are is one of my favorite albums.  Sadly it did not gain the recognition it deserved although I guess it now has a minor cult status.  I hope you will give it a listen.  I was tempted to use every song on it in my A to Z series.





Keeping Track of Time

         I've always thought about keeping a diary.  Those historical records like the diary of Samuel Pepys who famously chronicled London life in the 1600's fired my imagination when I read excerpts in high school. Anne Frank's diary has inspired many with her harrowing story of living in hiding from the Nazis.  Many movies and literary works have used the diary as a device for telling a story.   Keeping track of the events in my life in written form has often been something that I felt that I should do.

        Yet, I never seemed to be able to keep up a momentum to maintain an ongoing  record of my life.  I would sometimes start.  I'd get a journal or composition book having all the best of intent to faithfully start a diary.  Then after an entry or two I'd forget to write in it, eventually stopping altogether and stuffing the diary in a drawer.

        During my senior year of high school and into my first year of college I faithfully kept a dream diary.  I recorded my dreams in great detail and still have those notebooks to this day.   But that was not exactly my real life.  What happened during my waking hours is now mostly hazy memories if remembered at all.

        Life journal entries are something I tend to start writing when I'm depressed or when some negative event is hanging over me.  During my separations from my first and second wives I wrote a lot.  Sometimes I'd write about my days or I'd write about my feelings.   There were many songs and poems inspired by my hurt and sadness.  I suppose my creative writing qualifies as a form of journaling since I was digging from the depth of my emotions.

          In the summer of 1971 I embarked on what was to be a grand hitchhiking tour across the United States.   Each day I recorded in detail the aspects of my adventure and my impressions of the places that I had been.  There were many pages of writing for this journey that was cut short to a mere month of travel as opposed to several months.   A decade later a briefcase that contained this journal and many other writings was stolen when someone broke into my van in the Holiday Inn parking lot in Greeley, Colorado.  My grandest attempt at journaling probably ended up in a dumpster somewhere with many details of my memory gone with it.

          Like prayer, journaling is something I tend to do more of in times when I'm downcast.   I'm better with prayer since it's easier to say a quick "thank-you" now and then.  Writing takes more effort and time.  When I'm having happy times or good times there is little time for writing about it all.   Time just flies by pleasantly and usually the things I have to show for those experiences are of the nature of photographs or souvenir mementoes related to whatever I was doing at those times.

           Hurt and sadness gnaws long and agonizingly on the heart, mind, and soul.  Those are the times when you have to tell somebody what you're feeling and often that someone is yourself.  I've often turned to writing to sort out my feelings.  Somehow maybe I can find answers by writing.   Or at very least express my frustration or even rage.   Happy times often don't permit writing and pondering.  These are the times to live in the moment and hope to remember the experience.

           Keeping track of time can be tedious, meticulous, and self-indulging.   Or at other times keeping track of time can be quickly scribbled notes that are lost or unintelligible if not expounded upon quickly.  Time goes faster than any of us can adequately ever keep track of.     I suppose if I kept track of all the time in my life I wouldn't be doing that much actual living.

            Do you keep a journal of your life events?    Did you ever faithfully keep a diary in your past?   How do you think journaling life events can help you or others?