My Sleeves

Yesterday (Wednesday) I showed Modern Times to my Modern Poetry students. I laughed so much that my eyes filled with tears. I had to wipe my eyes on my sleeves.

Today it rained.

• Yesterday...
• I tore small pieces off my spinach pie and fed them to the dogs with my fingers. Each time, Sweet Pea gobbled hers down immediately. Buddha always smelled his first.
• I reread Hamlet and remembered why I love it. I am Hamlet. I am Hamlet. I am Hamlet.
• I sent back Season 3 disc 3 of The Sopranos (to Netflix).
• I made my reservation for a room at Hotel De Anza in San Jose.
• I took a bath early in the morning. I had not been to bed yet. The insects were loud outside the bathroom window. Once in a while, I heard a car on the highway.
• Today...
• My son Allen called today. We had a good talk. He wanted to know if I liked the CDs he let me borrow.
• It rained, so I couldn't ride my new bike after work.
• A young man came up to me after literature class and wondered if the detail about the torches storming the castle was in Hamlet. I said, "No, that's in Macbeth." He said, "Then Macbeth is my favorite play."

Today I had watermelon.

Today Allen fixed my supper. He cut chicken breasts into strips, breaded the strips and fried them. They were spicy and good. He stir fried vegetables and warmed spinach pie left over from yesterday. For dessert I had watermelon.

I release you...

One thing that started to bother me about my blog is that I started thinking too much about my readers.

Now, dear readers, I do love you. However, I began to worry too much about how I was dispensing information. I felt I had to present a coherent idea each time. And that began to put too much pressure on me.

I was afraid to be fragmentary or brief, for fear readers would roll their eyes and say, "She expects a comment on this?"

Therefore, I say to you, dear reader, I release you. I release you from all responsibility. You must not feel you have to comment on any of my entries. And if an entry looks esoteric, nonsensical, mediocre, tedious, or just too strange, just shrug your shoulders and go on.

I came to the conclusion that sometimes I might just want to jot down fragmentary thoughts or brief statements about what I did or saw that day. I came to this conclusion after reading Ianthe Brautigan's memoir of her father, Richard Brautigan. She reveals that Richard kept cryptic records about his days. Reading them, I was very touched. In a way, his short notes brought me closer to the man than lengthy autobiographical excursions would have. They also open me up, my mind, my heart. Hardly any adjectives, no sensory details. Just short, simple, declarative sentences. Elementary. True. Here are some examples:

Tuesday, September 2, 1975
My daughter and I talked about the FBI

Friday, September 19, 1975
I had a pleasant time with my daughter.

Friday, September 21, 1975
I had a long and very rewarding conversation with my daughter.

Friday, September 26, 1975
--We drove over to Bozeman to take my daughter to the dentist. She was in a very chatty mood.
--I went for a walk with my daughter down into the big fields, and I had a long talk with her.

Thursday, October 16, 1975
I bought a waffle iron for Ianthe, she's wanted one for a long time.

Saturday, October 25, 1975
Ianthe and I went into town and got some bulbs for planting. I want some daffodils in the spring.

The last two tug on me, in particular. It is touching to me that he bought his daughter the waffle iron. And it says something about his capacity for hope that he wanted to plant daffodil bulbs.

I am going to start posting some entries like this, and I'm going to see where the process takes me. It's an experiment. Maybe it will free my mind. I hope to discover some important truths this way.

Don't worry. You don't have to say anything at all. I release you. By releasing you, I am releasing myself.

This is one change I am making. I want to make more. More on that later.

The Wave (or Hamlet's doubts)

There is an excellent book called The Wave by Morton Rhue which explains how people can be seized by forces seemingly out of their control. Such a wave--a wave of doubt--seized me prior to writing my last entry, and I gave in to it. I have such doubts from time to time. As I look at the entry now, it seems like a cry in the wilderness more than anything.

I have never been good at keeping diaries or journals. I always give them up. This journal (blog) is the only personal reflection that I have been able to keep going. I have always quit them before. They start feeling too self-conscious, they start to feel like I'm telling lies, and I start to get a little tired of myself. I figure if I'm getting tired of myself, others must be getting tired of me. I wasn't sure I had it in me to take this project through a transformation. It seemed easier just to quit.

But my personal habits are so chaotic that perhaps this is the only forum that will allow me to keep any kind of record of my being at all (other than the stories that I write, which always come first). I should keep going. I am trying to build some confidence in myself that I have things worth saying. Maybe that will come to me in time.

I am already caught in the maelstrom of school. Tomorrow I must talk about the first act of Hamlet. So I guess I better go prepare.

Hamlet was a doubter. And look how he turned out.