Friends ask me what I have been doing. I don't know. I can't call up yesterday and I didn't make any recordings of the day. It bugs me that I know I lived through the whole day and I must have spent it somewhere doing something. I ate breakfast, I am pretty sure. I looked at my email. I probably had some fun experiences or insights but I can't recall any.
So, I decided to try journaling. I bought a notebook at Staples that looks just like our composition notebooks back before the present age. They looked like these: goo.gl/VXjJiq Well, only the black and white ones. This is all before the days of color. Now that I think of it, there was a time before color and I know it has been noted and researched. No color tv, only a few colors for cars, no green or blue hair and our notebooks were black and white. We had no tennis shoes in neon colors. Oh, it was stern!
It turns out that when I purposely record notes about yesterday, I have trouble. I can't stop writing. Suddenly, I recall this which leads to a total recall of that which totally deserves several comments, several of which are just begging for an additional witticism or flippant remark. As my 8th grade girl friend remarked recently, some academic types feel the need to footnote everything and supply bibliographies. One day, I may well appreciate having sources and references that pertain to some of the wild claims I make. I have difficulty just asserting something without pointing to affirmative evidence for my statement.
A question that comes to mind as I am grinding out words is "Am I ever going to use all this writing?" I actually have tried journaling before, many times. We both have notebook stacks, all the times we tried to make a diary before. I start off with a bang, writing away. But then I get sick or have to take a trip and leave the book at home or simply get tired of writing. In no time, a description of what I bought in the supermarket yesterday gets trite, even to write, much less read five years from now. Every notebook of a previous journal attempt is empty for the last 75% of the pages.
I plan to keep at it for a while, watching my brain. My main purpose is to increase my awareness of the highlights of the day before. I want to be able to respond intelligently about what the heck I have been doing.
