February 18, 1965
Do he or don't he?
I finished my history report - Ahh! It's nice to be done. I went to a rehearsal, too. It was neat. There was no confusion - it was organized - very neat. In other words, we got somewhere! Mr. S likes the script. Hooray and Halelujah. We had a test in Biology and I only got 4 wrong. That's a 92 at the most. Mr. P had told us it was hard, but it was very easy, very simple. (Fun for the feebleminded.)
February 18, 1997
This has been a very good year so far. Not one of great peaks of achievement, but a smooth one, punctuated by many more moments of contentment than I have had before. Spring seems to be waiting to burst upon us, but I wish it would snow one more time… a good 4-6”, no ice, and during the day, so I can watch it come down. Too bad you can’t order weather from a catalog.
The kids are on the move again, growing to some new level. One is both trying harder to be responsible and being more responsible without having to try so hard. The other is suddenly turned on by complexity and technical details. Beneath these surface effects, what changes have occurred? Life is a mystery. I guess someone looking at me would marvel at my sudden ability to exercise and have a quiet space every day. Today I feel like reading a poem or maybe birthing one.
Early spring
Spring came too soon this year,
The swelling buds and poking sprouts.
My friends are glad to see it come,
But deep inside, I have my doubts.
I need another snowfall -
To hear the soft swirling -
To smell the crisp air -
To savor my winter soup -
Winter was too short this year.
Too little snow, and too much ice.
My friends applaud its brevity
But one more snow day would be nice!
February 18, 2023
Some days I read these old entries, and it’s like sitting on the beach and watching the waves. Good days, bad days, a few more good days, then an awful day. I try to remember what it was like to ride those waves, but it is hard. Now and then my past self gives a hint, like the undertow lurking in the question “Do he or don’t he?” I was steeling myself to go to the post-game sock hop and see if V would ask me to dance. Asking him was out of the question back then. Girls didn’t ask boys to dance, or call them on the phone or anything else that would be construed as the first move. Good girls didn’t, that is. And I was decidedly a good girl.
My relationship with poetry is very odd. I have always enjoyed reading, memorizing, and reciting poems, and wrote my first one in elementary school. I think I remember it:
When I go down to see the shore,
I see a hundred waves or more
To me, they are white horses grand
That race along to meet the sand
When they get there, they turn from me
And go back to the great, wide sea.
Or maybe it’s a poem by someone else, that I memorized. I have tried to find it online, and there are dozens of poems about waves looking like horses, but not this one. I seldom share my own poetry; I never learned to write them, and some are awful. I certainly don’t compose them. They pop into my head and I write them down. Sometimes I will fiddle with the wording a little afterwards, but more often they just stay as they landed.
I just read ahead in my 1965 diary and need to warn you: there is a really terrible poem about V coming up in two days.
Also: I decided to go back and edit the entries about my children to give them more space and privacy. This project is about me, not them. Their stories are still being written, and not by me.