January 1

I’d like to make some resolutions, but what I’d really like to do is keep them.

1965

Oops! Almost forgot! No more of this back of the book stuff.

I went babysitting for Os again tonight 1-10 PM. Got $5.00. Not bad! Bob comes home tomorrow. I called P the day before. We talked for 5 minutes. I have no idea what it cost me. Probably about 60 cents. It was worth, though! She sent me a piece of a box that Lenny of the Dave Clark Five threw from a train. Sweet of her, huh? In case you’re lost (serves you right for reading my diary) this diary starts November 18, not Jan. 1^st.

Comment 2023

And 58 years later, I did the same thing: turned to the back of the diary to read the next entry.

One reason I lost touch with my childhood friends was the cost of long-distance phone calls. After we moved from Nebraska to New Jersey, I was allowed one call to my best friend on my 10th birthday. She was two years younger than I was, and we hadn’t seen each other in a year and a half, so we had little to say. P, my Dave Clark Five fan, lived in New Jersey and made the trip to Connecticut for a visit the summer of 1964 and wrote occasional letters. Long distance calls were a rare treat, and they came out of my own pocket. The going rate for babysitting was about what that 5-minute call cost me. According to Prof. Google, the current rate for a babysitter ranges from $15-18 per hour for one child.

P was a short, skinny girl with an unfortunately large nose. The first time I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, I immediately thought “The drummer looks just like P!!” She came to visit me in the summer of 1964, sporting a Beatle haircut and a Mod newsboy cap. P played the drums in the high school marching band, and her uncanny resemblance to Ringo Starr had created quite a stir. Within days of the Ed Sullivan Show, she had become one of the most popular girls in school. Had she been old enough to date, she would have had an amazing social life. I have a photo of her in full Beatle gear somewhere, but tossed out the scrap of Lenny’s cardboard box.

1984

I’d like to make some resolutions, but what I’d really like to do is keep them.

I’ve like to exercise regularly and vigorously. I’d like to rediscover research. I’d like to simplify the parts of my life that slow me down with their complexity.

That’s about it. They are the laggiest problems in my life right now. Oh yes. And I would like to conquer and BURY procrastination. Burn it in effigy in the front yard.

1985

The first day of the year feels an awful lot like most of last year. Cranky me, until I got a nap. Not much work done. On the other hand, it was a holiday!!) Spent part of the day grumbling and snarling, the rest being cheery and pleasant. Resolution time! That will make it feel more like New Year’s Day!

Exercise 3x a week for 1/2 and hour
Get a contract for the book
Get a grip on my moods.
That’s plenty/ If I manage even 1, I’ll be pleased, because they are all biggies. 2 out of 3 would be monstrous good, three out of three…bliss.

1992

How fast things change! The department’s demise is certain. I am definitely moving to American Studies, Which is ok, I think/I hope. Sometimes I worry tat I won’t be able to adjust, that three classes a week (all new preps) will be too much, that my research will shrivel on the vine, that becoming an administrator isn’t a viable plan B. How dismal it all looks sometimes! But I have no choice but to give it a chance.

Only five more months of administrative torment as acting department chair, as the unit closes down. A truly unpleasant job, most of the time. AMST does look good, in comparison.

Over break I should be finishing revisions on the book, time permitting, of course.

New Year’s Resolutions: enjoy my family more, be more careful about my own health, to pick up the loose ends that were put aside during the reorganization mess.

1995

Whoosh. Things were pretty normal up to Thanksgiving, then sort of fell apart. I got an email from Bob that Dad had taken a turn for the worse. He was in the hospital to have some stuff done so he could get heart medicine directly, but was having more and more trouble breathing. He changed his daily instructions to the visiting nurse to “do not resuscitate” on Dec. 4. From then on, all holiday plans were on hold. I considered going to see him, but got the strong message that he might want to see me, but didn’t want me to see him. Beside, it was the end of the term and I was up to my eyeballs in papers and exams, as usual.

At 2:15 am on December 19, I got the call from my stepbrother that Dad had died. It was odd, standing there staring out into the back yard, thinking about the trees and the moonlight and how I felt frozen, just like them. In a single stroke, my life was different. It’s been a crazy two weeks since. It was hard to tell Mom - she was upset, of course, and also worried about the impact this would have on her financial situation. We spent part of the day together and she was here when Bob called to tell me about the memorial service. I suggested that Bob and family come for Christmas after the service, which they did, and that was a definitely upper!

The service was ok - sparsely attended. He had so many friends, but they are so scattered and at that time of the year the only ones who could make it were the ones who lived close by. I was doing ok until I walked into the funeral home and heard “Sentimental Journey” playing. Dad had picked all the music himself - lost of Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, of course. There was flag draped over the casket and a really neat picture of him taken in healthier, happier days, in front of one of the New Milford Times presses. We stood and received visitors for over an hour before. Brief service.It was nice enough - Lutheran - but didn’t reflect much about Dad. Of course, it’s hard to say what his beliefs were in recent years. If he was no longer a church-goer, it was because of the low regard in which he held people he considered “hypocrites” and “phonies”.

We drove through Port Norris with Bob and family on the way back to Maryland. The old Advertiser Press building is just a pile of rubble now, with the swamp grasses encroaching on two sides. The kids had fun stomping out fathers and a “village” in the swamp just like Bob and I did when we were kids. But overall it was just sad.

Christmas was good, with Bob, Bonnie and family and here and Mo was delighted to see them after four years. Then they trooped back north. The interment was a few days later, and I went back to Port Norris alone. The actual interment was simple. Jeannie left the box near the whole, along with some flowers. We went to a cousin’s house for coffee and then everyone went their separate ways. I went back to the cemetery. The box had been placed in the ground and covered with a plug of soil. I just said,’ Goodbye, Dad. I love you. I forgive you.”

Why forgive? In the last week I had thought lot about our relationship. The thing that struck me most was that fatherhood hadn’t made much of an impression on Dad, especially being a father to a girl. I think he was too busy trying to figure out how to be a good husband to Mom. He never understood why Mom was so sad and angry. But he was a good husband to Jeannie, a good father to David, and a good friend to many, many people. I realized reading his memoir that I was barely a footnote to his life, a fact that I can’t change but don’t need to repeat with my own children.

It’s funny - - I used to say that I gave myself permission to have children when I realized I didn’t have to be my mother. I guess I had forgotten that I gave myself permission get married when I realized I didn’t have to be my father.

Well, anyway. A new year begins, and a new stage of life, I think. Don’t yet know what shape it will take. Guess I’ll find out.

1996

My New Year’s Resolution is to change the first 90 minutes of each day. I will get up, read the paper and then go back upstairs and either exercise indoors and get dressed (bad weather) or get dressed and exercise outdoors (good weather). 20-30 minutes of exercise a day. Also get back in the diary habit. I have LOST the last few years because I didn’t write down what was going on in my life.

1997

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” - Zora Neale Hurston

What do I want? What do I fear? Those are the questions, as I step into this new year. As always, I am full of fear and longing. As always, I bury them under busy-ness. Is it as simple as longing for the past and fearing the future? I hope not, since I can’t change either the past or the future. Or do I fear the past and its nightmares, born of sad and angry times, and long for an impossibly peaceful future?

It’s a gray, cold day, as January 1 is apt to be. I have slept late, skimmed the paper, picked up Kiddo 1 and her friend from their overnight. I have made lentil and sausage soup. I have rearranged some furniture to create a “thinking place” for me. From where I sit at the old computer desk, I can see the naked oak trees and the gray sky.

I long for peace - - freedom from worry and anxiety. Is that the same as confidence? Security? I long for time to be alone with my thoughts. Is “peace” the same as contentment? Is it the same as freedom from aces and pains in my body and spirit?

I fear failure. These days I especially fear failure in relationships: mother and wife. Getting through my children’s adolescence with our marriage intact is very, very important. I worry that it is easier to talk about my feelings with my daughter than my husband. I worry that I have created too much space between us. I long for the little house in Adelphi where we were always a few steps away from each other.

I turn 48 this year. I have reached menopause. My oldest child is 14, and only a few years away from leaving the nest. My son is 10, poised on the edge of childhood. Jim and I celebrated our 26^th anniversary this year. My mother turns 75 in February. Jim mother died in August, erasing the line between him and his own mortality.

That is where I am now. I feel a great sense of anticipation, that life hold great changes in the coming years. How very odd that today feels so ordinary.

1998

Yes, it’s 1/1, and it is also 1:11 pm. With eight teenagers piled up in the family room, probably not sleeping most of the night and then ready to eat breakfast, it has NOT been a quiet morning. But it has been sunny, bustle-y, muffin-y morning. It is COLD outside - - below freezing - - so doing a batch of muffins was a good idea. When they are at their best, teenagers are great.

We didn’t watch Fledermaus last night (boo) but the mystery party was fun. LOUD, but great. Kiddo 2 spent the night across the street (again). Maybe they adopted him and didn’t tell us. Hope not. He’s a keeper.

Now it’s nearly time to make the lentil soup and bake the bread for our second wave of guests. I invited so many people I’ve lost track. But this is a nice way to start the new year. The perfect way, in fact.

1999

How very strange that number looks! (Wait until next year!) My deepest aspirations for the new year: to do meaningful creative authentic work. To demonstrate to may children that they have my unconditional love. To express my love for Jim more often and more openly. To make a real effort to improve my fitness.

It’;s a beautiful sunny day. A snow storm is coming tomorrow, so today I make soup. We went to Greenbelt ’s First Night celebration last night to hear Kiddo 1’s band. They get better all the time. She sounded a bit stuffy, been nursing a cold. Now I have one, too.

2003

That was a very low-key New Year’s Eve, with undercurrents of terror. We watched UM in the Peach Bowl (we won 30-0, go Terps!) I was feeling stuffy and slightly headache and not in the mood for champagne. I nearly went to bed early, but managed to watch the ball drop. Deep inside, I was afraid something awful would happen - another terrorist attack , perhaps - - at midnight. I worry about the state of the world and the mess we are leaving for our children. Jack and I discusses social justice in America, the meaning and future of economic inequality, and the government’s possible role in addressing it. He is pessimistic. It was hard to maintain my usual optimism in the face of his arguments. Maybe it is hopeless. But if I accept that, then what?

2018

Today is Monday. 

New Year’s Day 2018

A new day, a new year. 
A sore throat, a stuffy head. 
What a beginning. 

I watch the squirrels in my yard.
Grateful that someone is feeling frisky.
My brain is full of mud and snot.
My joints cry out.
My eyelids are glued together
My nose is running.
I watch the squirrels in my yard.Grateful that someone is feeling frisky.

“My nose is running”. How many times have I written those words? Perhaps I need a new way to describe my morning nasal condition.

2024

Wow. I turn 75 this year, the age my mother was when she died in 1997. My oldest child is 41, the youngest just turned 37. Jim and I celebrated our 53^rd anniversary in our little four-room apartment, where we are “always a few steps away from each other”.

We welcomed the new year yesterday with extended family and a meal of lentil and sausage soup. Kiddo 1 brought two gingerbread house kits. Grandkiddo 2 decorated one (he is clearly talented!!!). The other was begun by Kiddo 2, continued by Kiddo 1 until it was time to leave, and then passed on to Granny Jo to complete. I “finished” it during my morning meditation time. The 2023 side is complete but incomplete, as the past always seems to be. And the future side is - unwritten. Leave it to me to turn a gingerbread house into a metaphysical statement. (Also to save the NECCO wafers for myself.)

L to R: Grandkiddo masterpiece, 2023, 2014