Beyond the Literal Words Etched on to the Page, Journals Carry Much More
I began journal writing long ago at the age of 15. It was a requirement from my English teacher, Miss Schmidler, who, in my eyes at the time, was a schoolmarm of grammatical exactitude and a literary connoisseur. She sat proud in her polyester pantsuit behind the teacher’s desk and made a whistling sound through her lips when she lectured on the structural rules that govern composition.
Through my 15-year-old eyes, she seemed too old and proper to ever understand someone like me. I wonder what the teenage me would think today if she looked to the front of the classroom and saw me? Would she notice the wrinkles and gray hairs? Would she roll her eyes and think, “Man, she’ll never understand me.” Maybe she would say to herself, “Wow, I want to be like her when I’m that age.” Or, would she fold her arms tight against her body, slide down in her desk, and keep glancing at the clock to psychically make the bell ring faster?
I never said to myself “Wow, I want to be just like Miss Schmidler.” Sitting through class right after downing a couple of Winchell’s donuts and a cup coffee for lunch, I psychically tried to move the hands of the clock forward as Miss Schmidler guided us through the tattered grammar book and syntax lectures. When the day came and she assigned as required homework to write in a journal everyday for 10 minutes, my donut and caffeine-laced veins almost exploded.
“10 minutes? Required?!”
“Writing for 10 minutes each day will make you a better writer. And, a better thinker,” she stated through stodgy words of wisdom.
I soon found that 10 minutes usually equaled about a page, or so. Through this structured container, I first felt restricted and resentful. I then surprised myself: topics and feelings I never talked about began to pour from my pen and onto the page.
On the one-year anniversary of the death of a favorite teacher, I wrote several pages. I apologetically told Miss Schmidler that I wrote more than 10 minutes that day – like I needed to apologize for doing more than what was asked. She removed her bifocals, arched her eyebrows, and nodded. “Some days are like that,” she said without judgement and continued to leaf through the pages of my journal without focusing on the written details.
What were her journals like, I now wonder? What did they capture for her, carry for her through her life?
Back then, she seemed strict and prudish, teaching grammar and literature each day and probably going home to a chilly, one-bedroom apartment. Maybe a literary classic also greeted her.
In those days, I never wondered about her passions, her interests, her hobbies -- her life. I do now. I bet she wrote flawless letters-to-the editors of multiple newspapers, painted watercolors, and tended to a thriving garden. Maybe she wrote poems and, with her keen wit, pulled off a dirty limerick or two. Her dreams? Perhaps to walk the streets of Dublin arm-in-arm with a Trinity writing professor and sip tea together in the James Joyce room above Bewley’s Café on Grafton Street. Her journals know intimately her dreams and her day-to-day life at 22, 34, 47, 63, 77, and beyond.
If her journals are anything like mine, they also carry her loves, celebrations, and passions. They carry her heartache and her loneliness too.
Beyond the literal words etched on to the page, journals carry so much more, like energy expressed, life force in motion from one day to the next, and aliveness. On active days, the page affirms, “Yes, you are alive.” On lonesome days, the page affirms, “Yes, you are alive.” On exciting days, on difficult days, on mundane, mundane, mundane days, “Yes, you are alive.”
I’m sure Miss Schmidler has passed on. I see her in her casket surrounded by pink roses. Her plump, folded hands rest across her polyester-pant suit. Beneath dignified fingers that could scratch out a misplaced comma from a mile away, I imagine a tattered copy of The Great Gatsby, her elegant leather-bound journal, and a vintage fountain pen.
Here I am many years later coming home in the evenings alone. My journals know me intimately at 15, 24, 37, 46, 55 and beyond and help carry my dreams, my activities, and my frustrations. My celebrations and passions are right there on the pages too. Most importantly, beyond the literal words, my journals carry my life-force from one day to the next – my aliveness – affirming each day, “Yes, I am alive.”
I did not learn the structural rules that govern composition from the book and Miss Schmidler’s dry lectures. I confess: I passed those exams by peeking at the page of the girl sitting next to me. The journal, on the other hand, became a life-long teacher and my most trusted best friend.
You were right, Miss Schmidler: I learned to write; I learned to think. You probably also knew, but never stated, that my journal would teach me to live.
Although I enjoy literary classics (but I’m not much of a connoisseur), and I’ll take a faded pair of blue jeans and an organic cotton top over anything polyester, perhaps Miss Schmidler and I are more alike than I ever thought we’d be.