A journey through a dark time
Mar. 29th, 2009 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI have a two drawer filing cabinet full of nothing but old journals. I've been keeping them regularly since I was twelve or thirteen and although I don't have each and every one, there's enough there and scattered in other places to take up considerable bulk in my life. The last time I had to pack them and move them I vowed to do something about it. I chose to go through them from time to time when I had the stomach for it and decide what to keep by scanning and pdf-ing and what to consign to the shredder.
Going through these journals is sometimes an exercise in extreme masochism (hurt-feeling outpourings and such), which is why I'm doing it slowly and hit and miss. But there are gems in there, too, or I wouldn't continue doing this. Sometimes I find the earliest genesis of some of my novels; fountains of ideas I'd completely forgotten (and may use some day); poetry (some of it painful, some of it not bad); philosophical and analytical screeds; observations on life events; items taped in the pages, mementos of the times I lived through, etc. The notebooks are jumbled in the filing cabinet so as I pull them out to work I leaping back and forth in time.
Late last week I pulled out the one I was keeping at the time of my beloved stepdad's death. The thing is, I didn't realize it: the year didn't register on my mind as I paged through. The first half of the notebook is full of the usual stuff, but then on October 16, 1993: "My father was struck down with an aneurysm in the aorta. He died around 3 a.m. October 14." Nothing more for about a week, and then, amazingly, an incredible burst of creativity. In the weeks following Tom's death I found the earliest genesis of three of my novels (Blood Geek, Night Warrior, and Charged with Folly), material I'd completely forgotten about. And poetry, lots of poetry--but not the kind I would imagine. It's all very controlled. Yes, there are sad entries, but mostly what I find astonishing is the spareness of most of what I've written and the incredible outpouring of fantasy and fiction.
Part of this, of course, was that I was very controlled at that time. Not that I didn't grieve. I was grieving very deeply. But my mother was completely coming apart at the seams and for that first year after Dad's death, I couldn't afford to let my own grief out. Mom would go completely off the deep end whenever I showed my own pain. If I cried, it had to be on the drive to and from work, or late at night when I was in bed. It was an awful time--and I seem to have poured it all into the work, writing about hidden agendas and living a double life and vampires trying to keep a tight rein on their urges and being caretakers for sick parents, etc.
The next year, I imagine, I'll find a different narrative. After that first year of anniversaries, my mom had managed to pull it together and I was able to better address my own grief. Counseling helped, too. I was stronger, thereafter, in the broken places, to paraphrase Papa Hemingway.
I don't think I'll get rid of this journal. I may still scan and pdf it, but the urge to hold onto this one is strong, to preserve it as a document of a dark, dark time that completely changed my life and helped define who I am.
The angels are mute
when I ask them why.
They cannot speak,
or will not speak,
for theirs is not the realm of answers.
Theirs is the realm of dumb love
and I must be content
with their silence--or go mad.
I have fallen from grace,
if I ever had it at all.
I am listening too hard.
I will never hear.
-November 19, 1993
Going through these journals is sometimes an exercise in extreme masochism (hurt-feeling outpourings and such), which is why I'm doing it slowly and hit and miss. But there are gems in there, too, or I wouldn't continue doing this. Sometimes I find the earliest genesis of some of my novels; fountains of ideas I'd completely forgotten (and may use some day); poetry (some of it painful, some of it not bad); philosophical and analytical screeds; observations on life events; items taped in the pages, mementos of the times I lived through, etc. The notebooks are jumbled in the filing cabinet so as I pull them out to work I leaping back and forth in time.
Late last week I pulled out the one I was keeping at the time of my beloved stepdad's death. The thing is, I didn't realize it: the year didn't register on my mind as I paged through. The first half of the notebook is full of the usual stuff, but then on October 16, 1993: "My father was struck down with an aneurysm in the aorta. He died around 3 a.m. October 14." Nothing more for about a week, and then, amazingly, an incredible burst of creativity. In the weeks following Tom's death I found the earliest genesis of three of my novels (Blood Geek, Night Warrior, and Charged with Folly), material I'd completely forgotten about. And poetry, lots of poetry--but not the kind I would imagine. It's all very controlled. Yes, there are sad entries, but mostly what I find astonishing is the spareness of most of what I've written and the incredible outpouring of fantasy and fiction.
Part of this, of course, was that I was very controlled at that time. Not that I didn't grieve. I was grieving very deeply. But my mother was completely coming apart at the seams and for that first year after Dad's death, I couldn't afford to let my own grief out. Mom would go completely off the deep end whenever I showed my own pain. If I cried, it had to be on the drive to and from work, or late at night when I was in bed. It was an awful time--and I seem to have poured it all into the work, writing about hidden agendas and living a double life and vampires trying to keep a tight rein on their urges and being caretakers for sick parents, etc.
The next year, I imagine, I'll find a different narrative. After that first year of anniversaries, my mom had managed to pull it together and I was able to better address my own grief. Counseling helped, too. I was stronger, thereafter, in the broken places, to paraphrase Papa Hemingway.
I don't think I'll get rid of this journal. I may still scan and pdf it, but the urge to hold onto this one is strong, to preserve it as a document of a dark, dark time that completely changed my life and helped define who I am.
The angels are mute
when I ask them why.
They cannot speak,
or will not speak,
for theirs is not the realm of answers.
Theirs is the realm of dumb love
and I must be content
with their silence--or go mad.
I have fallen from grace,
if I ever had it at all.
I am listening too hard.
I will never hear.
-November 19, 1993
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