I have a red book in my room. Small and nondescript, save for its redness. I bought the book five years ago, though the book itself was blank until some time after that. I honestly could not tell you with any degree of certainty, because I have not looked inside of it for years.
Time and I have a very curious relationship. As I sit and wade through all of my half-memories, struggling to sort them into something structured, time comes behind me and trips on its own line, knocking the past back into the past. Time whispers, "...As it should be."
My head is not a great place to store photographs.
I read the book of a Dead Woman five years ago, in a cold basement in Illinois. I read the last days of her life, beginning to know her in those pages. She wrote letters to her children, without the slightest hint of despair. There was love in her words.
And then her words stopped. Replaced by a final page of another person, who felt compelled to finish the story.
"The woman who kept this journal died in 1977. She is finally free."
The woman had died. She succumbed to a disease she had never mentioned, but from which she had been suffering since before I had begun reading. I knew that she had deliberately avoided the subject, because I knew that she did not want her children to remember her pain, because I knew her in those pages.
Wading. I am in a store. Borders? Barnes & Noble? A girl is with me, but I cannot decide who it was. I am looking for a red book and a red pen. I nearly give up, surprised that I cannot find the book for which I am looking. The girl directs my attention to a small display, holding random articles. The red book is there. I hold it, determining its sufficiency. It will do. I buy the book.
I am home. Kaufman? Kemp? Canton? The setting is gone, but the feeling remains. I stare at the book, a Now What feeling in my chest. The book lies dormant. There is nothing to write until Wednesday, January 2, 2008.
__________________________
Friday, January 4, 2008 - 5:37pm
"This book is safe. If you say something, it can be heard. No one reads this book, or sees me writing in it. My thoughts are safe."
__________________________
I was amazed that, although I had not written in the book in two years, two houses ago, I still knew exactly where to find it.
I've been looking at random dates and pages. So many gaps! I would write daily, then skip for months. I refer to things I have no memory of. The Heather Incident? Who was Heather? I wrote on the day I was supposed to die. My reaction? "Obviously, I didn't."
There was love in her words. There was hate in mine.
The REASON this book is on my mind is that I want to write it in again.
My life has become happy. A happiness that is orders of magnitudes greater than anything I can remember.
The REASON this book is on my mind is that I cannot remember my life.
My life was terribly depressing. I can feel the self-loathing dripping from my wry, sardonic words.
The REASON this book is on my mind is that I realize I have become just like the man who finished the Dead Woman's book.
I am another person, who feels compelled to finish the story.
I have so much for which to account. The responsibility of these memories belongs to me. They are, in a sense, my fault. I keep thinking that I want to tell... someone... what an adventure my life has become, but I can't see myself putting Now in the same volume as Then.
I have to account for my self-hate. I have to account for my misspent love. I have to read through this and remember who I was and what I did before I can continue. No one in the book has remained as they were when it was written. I certainly haven't. I'm very nearly ashamed of who I had been.
But... You know, the contrast is hopeful. I can very truthfully see myself as an entirely new and different person in opposition to that guy.
I feel happy. Something that guy never would have said. But he isn't here anymore. So I will start my newest entry:
Thursday, July 19, 2012
"The man who kept this journal died in 2010. He is finally free."
