a chronicle of obsessions
After 12 years of serious journal-keeping, I have accumulated a huge stack of paper, and quite a chronicle of obsessions. Below, a few excerpts.
Every once in a while a fantastic tiny little victory will come along for which I must be grateful. A tiny victory so small it requires magnification under a lens in order to be understood. This is it: he called tonight, and I didn't talk to him. — 1992
We went this weekend to Little River Canyon and hiked... I looked over the cliff into the white water splashing down below. Owen held both my hands behind my back (this was to brace me as I gazed down into the abyss). Later that night I dreamt of slipping over the edge, falling a merciless distance to the rocks below. — 1993
Every night I come in late and light the candles and play opera music loud in my second-story bedroom. Is that wrong? Now after he kept me up all night I will see him a week from tomorrow. I count down the days like an idiot. — 1994
A million things to remember a million things to whisper in your ear. The cowbell wind chimes next door. Ugh it's so very Jack Kerouac. Empty Old Milwaukee cans as ashtrays. I wanted to go back before the ugly statistic of AM radio wrecked the tranquility, back before the no-color sky brightened the room dismally. I wanted to go back to my wrists on the mattress looking straight up and not knowing what to do, not knowing how my face should behave, back to the sweet tender time when I kissed his face gently again and again telling him I'd take care of him. — 1995
My pain multiplied by his. It's like letting all your weight go as you walk into the sea. You don't realize how much you've invested until you get out of it and your clothes waterlogged weigh eight thousand pounds and you're trudging through sand. — 1996
The dresses in the department stores have already wilted. For two blissed-out weeks in March they danced across the racks in clouds of organza, tulle, silk. Shades from mother-of-pearl, all soft oyster and pink and butter yellow. A tickle of green. And now it's not even June and the tones have all deepened, slipped into stains. Heather has decayed to violet and pink has bled to red. All sober and practical. Whimsy won't get you far. — 1997
Am I being too idealistic? in a word, yes. So I have found the one to take all my crooked treasures. Yes, he cherishes them. So do you ever really know? Well, okay, but doesn't it seem like you should? After all, this is once in a lifetime. At the same time — I have a fear of intimacy. I have a terrible fear of waking up one day and having nothing to say to the person beside me. — 1998
It is hard finding time to write. It's not like before when I had little pockets of time all over in which I could pick up the pen, jot a thought, write a brilliant statement. Life is a shabby flurry of missed phone calls, grocery receipts, thank you notes, dust bunnies, dirty socks, wedding magazines, smiles, sighs, anticipation. — 1999
I was walking through the Farmer's Market alone again tonight (picking up onions, carrots, red peppers, cheese, apples...). I realized that I miss B. I miss being able to go out on our weird semi-romantic dates together or our weird tragic picnics. I miss the sheer physical presence of him. And the fact that while he was sullen, he was never quiet about it. I miss the easy senseless chatter that led nowhere, the meandering dialogue. — 2000
This is very much is very much the same thing that I have been thinking about in regards to leaving East Lake — that it is sucking away the bright seed in the middle of me that made room for whimsy and 'magic' and idiosynchrasies and wildness. And this is all pretty hard to talk about because I feel like it's all very much underwater, a submerged thing, a slippery fish with reflective scales that dazzle. —2001
I drove up late after work by myself. Friday night is a good one for driving; the radio plays all manner of silly songs and the highways are uncluttered. The tin ashtrays in this Waffle House remind me of the ones they used to have in McDonalds, before smoking in McDonalds was outlawed. I'm glad there's no one here to see me smoking (this fresh pack of Marlboros is entirely ridiculous for a girl like me to be carrying. Girls with my haircut do not smoke, especially not Marlboro Reds). — 2002
Redemption at midnight with L. I arrived to the club alone late last night — came through the chill with my hands shoved in my pockets, looking like one of the boys with cargo pants and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up halfway. And R. was outside the club with T. and P. and some other boys — and there was L. too, wearing a dark brown suede jacket, smoking a Hemingway Short Story. — 2003
Oh the dreams I've been having lately! Last night's was deeply disturbing but also somehow encouraging. In the dream I died. I really died. I died and then I watched myself exit the body. I changed forms in an instant from this dying, struggling person to a fully living person who was now responsible for the custody of this body (I covered my own former body respectfully with a coverlet, but I could still see the graceful curve of my neck, my hair gently spread behind my head.) I had to make arrangements with the airlines to get the body back home so that I could give it a decent burial. — 2004
Tim left the room where we were talking to go join the crowds at the goingaway party, and he sent his dog Don in to take care of me. And Don and I hung out in the little bedroom and I sat next to him on the floor and petted him and cried and told him that he was a very good dog and that he was going to be okay. He just let me pet him and he beat his tail against the floor. — 2005
Comments and faves
avrilstylo, fubuki, Paul Watson, Janusfinder, and 647 other people added this photo to their favorites.
John Daharsh (89 months ago | reply)
i guess pictures *can* tell a thousand words.
of couse, so can a thousand words.
drp (89 months ago | reply)
Thinking about writing a book?
avrilstylo (89 months ago | reply)
I wish I could write like that. Do you write everyday?
fubuki (89 months ago | reply)
romanlily - such a gifted diarist. a few bon mots, a reflection, an observation, an intensely personal but encrypted confession...i love the richness of your interior life - gives me a glimpse into the Why and the How of your great photography. thank you for sharing these wonderful selections :)
Shooz (89 months ago | reply)
Your words are wonderful. Thank you
alfarman (89 months ago | reply)
what an insight,ty says it all.thank you
romanlily (89 months ago | reply)
Thanks kids! April, I don't write every day. I actually don't 'force' myself to engage in the journals in any structured way... I just write when the urge strikes. Which ends up being maybe a couple times a week. The habit started in high school and has never quit since then. It's really therapeutic (and wonderfully inexpensive). Most of what I write is junk — no book in my future. These books may well meet their demise one day on the ash heap. But it is good to have this record. Helps me detect patterns and blind spots and things to celebrate along the way.
jessamyn.n (89 months ago | reply)
I hope you're not calling what you've posted here junk - you know that instead they are examples of lovely, lyrical, evocative writing, right? Because they are. Obviously, I can't speak for what you haven't posted and I haven't read, but I have a hard time believing that this loveliness is *completely* surrounded by junk. :)
mcmrbt (89 months ago | reply)
Romanlily, never, ever throw your journals on the ash heap. It's hard holding onto things, I know; every time you move house you have to cart everything with you, and there's always the temptation to run things through the life laundry, but don't do it. I threw away all my diaries many years ago - but worse, I threw away all my letters, including linda riley's, which was one of the dumbest things I ever did.
romanlily (89 months ago | reply)
Thanks for the good advice Rob. And thank you, Jessie, for your vote of confidence. Maybe not all of it is junk. But I had to look really hard to find anything from 92, 93, and 94 that was not deeply embarrassing and cringe-worthy. Maybe I'll say the same thing about my present-day journals in 10 years.
Titian Sleuth (89 months ago | reply)
(Why not this one, too?)
And then there are always emails from X. with additional advice. All of it thoughtfully composed, of course, and mostly sound -- but still. It's wearying having all of these conversations. People keep coming up to me as I'm sitting on the sidewalk, bleeding from the mouth, and they look down at me writhing and say, "You know what YOUR problem is?..." "No, but I sure hope you're going to tell me what it is!..." ... It's lunch time. I'm going to go pick up the drycleaning down the street. Man, I LOVE picking up the drycleaning. It makes me feel so grownup. Will politely refuse anyone who offers me advice along the way. I can find my own damn path to the drycleaners. -2004
dziner (89 months ago | reply)
Thanks for sharing these moments with us.
melissathegoofy (89 months ago | reply)
WOW. lots of books.
brandonrhodes (89 months ago | reply)
John Daharsh — Thank you for the biggest laugh and smile I have had all week!
Romanlily — a friend once knew a professional photographer, an elite artist whose images sometimes appeared in National Geographic, who every New Year's Eve would sit before his roaring fire and throw in, one by one, his negatives from the past year. Of roll after roll of shots, only those he judged perfect would he set aside and keep. From thousands and tens of thousands of photographs, he considered it to have been a good year if he kept a dozen.
If you really cannot bear to carry forward the accumulated weight of those journals, then I hope you will at least salvage from the blaze a few choice pages from each journal, that still hold for you some real poignancy or truth in the harsh light of later maturity and experience.
Perhaps there is always an art to carrying forward enough, but not too much, of our past. When recently I happened upon some of the more tortured correspondance from my own earlier decades, it made me wonder whether personal literacy has done us all that much good. In a more benighted age, what one's memory did not salvage from youth was simply and mercifully gone; now, every detail can ambush us twenty years later out of the corner of the closet.
romanlily (89 months ago | reply)
Brandon — this is a wonderful observation. I especially like your phrase referring to the "art" of carrying forward certain pieces of our past. That is especially pertinent for me at this time. I have never thought about my relationship with the past in this way.
The wonderful Paul Ford wrote a beautiful, brief essay a couple of years ago that ties into this thought. Do take a look.
paisley [deleted] (89 months ago | reply)
there is nothing like worn journals !
great!
Houstonian (89 months ago | reply)
Thanks for sharing these heartfelt moments; your eloquent style is deep and moving.
John Daharsh (89 months ago | reply)
brandonrhodes
I saw this photo, and added the first line of the comment.
What is funny is that I came back an hour or so later and Grace's description had appeared.
I felt so clever adding the second line :o)
And Grace, I hope you keep them all. We are - in some respect - entirely a creation of our past. Everything that we have gone through -- good and bad (and embarassing, perhaps) is why we are who we are.
We all can't see what's on all those pages, we can't even see all of who you presently are. We only get to see what you let us see 'virtually' and so many of us love what we are able to see.
This photo is like a photo of a supporting column of some beautiful building, and perhaps we wonder what would happen if that column were removed.
Aren't metaphors great! [read: strong sarcasm -- I hate metaphors sometimes -- especially when I start using them]
themexican (89 months ago | reply)
I think this one needs go go in journals and letters: www.flickr.com/groups/journal/
Julie70 (89 months ago | reply)
Thank you for sharing with us the photo, and the snippets of you diarys. I was shaken already by the first "I did not call back" - I know how difficult it is. I kept journal for 60 years by now, and I have the impression that the two I lost are like part of my life was taken away.
Do you publish them (or parts of them) ? Do you have a blog ? I just begin to put parts of mine on my new blog, even I do not know well how to put, where to begin, etc.
Keep up, keep them, write them, whenever you feel : a diary is one of our best frieds, one part of ourselves speaking to another.
Gunnella (89 months ago | reply)
Lovely snippets and photo, thanks for sharing :-D
Nasir Nasrallah (88 months ago | reply)
like it :)
strph (88 months ago | reply)
Lovely excerpts.
One of my greatest silly heartbreaks was losing an almost-full journal on an airplane. It's foolish to expect that some stranger would keep it, perhaps, but it also stings to think that maybe a flight attendant just threw it in the trash.
I know I wouldn't do that. Could never throw somebody's journal away, even if I didn't know them. Maybe that journal of mine is still out there somewhere after all...
Anyway, thanks for sharing.
Patrick Houlihan (83 months ago | reply)
Congratulations! This image is one of Flickr's Most Interesting photos for 4 February 2005. Would you please add it to the Interestingness pool? It will be a great addition!
(Interestingness is a cool new Flickr feature. About Interestingness)
crazy art girl (81 months ago | reply)
i love the ways you have worded those sections you wrote. They inspire me to write more in mine even!
floresita (79 months ago | reply)
This is fabulous! This makes me miss my own stack of journals (go back to age 8). :)
janetkwon (79 months ago | reply)
wow. i've tried writing but it's hard to write down all my thoughts. but once in a while when i write i feel a lot better.
i like your picture. and i especially like your description.
Legolam (77 months ago | reply)
I totally agree that writing a diary is therapeutic. I've been writing mine for 15 years and every night I write my diary then feel like I can put that day behind me and start a new one.
aepoc (76 months ago | reply)
I really like this photo a lot, which is why it's in my favorites. You can tell each notebook has been used. The lighting is great, I like how dark it is on the left side. Very nice job.
Trevor Nerbas (76 months ago | reply)
I love this photo and what makes the photo even more effective is your post -- that what's captured in that photo is not just a pile of books, it's stories and emotions. I think that's cool. :)
hazymat (71 months ago | reply)
... and this is why I love Flickr. Brilliant.
Rachael101 (70 months ago | reply)
such power from this.. anyone can interpret this image in sooo many ways! thats why its so brillient :)
exoskull (70 months ago | reply)
Wow very nice
geraintwn (69 months ago | reply)
I'll avoid the cliched phrase that I'm thinking of at the moment but that's a fantastic photo
bornwrosesinhereyes (68 months ago | reply)
wonderful.
Im jealous of people with crazy amounts of journals...I used to have a bunch when i was little, but they were lost or thrown out. What I wouldn't give to have them again.
I have a little collection that I'll just have to let grow :)
Mocken (68 months ago | reply)
It seems nearly an obsession of chronicles. Nice work.
Lnr Mck (68 months ago | reply)
Add this to Found Still Life?
DreamCatcherMhay (67 months ago | reply)
coolio...its nice to be able to write...even if you don't rhyme or jot down in an organize manner. as log as it was true to you....
addicted2cellulite (67 months ago | reply)
a picture that says milions of words
nnneller (65 months ago | reply)
i absolutely love this. i have about as many journals and i've only been writing for four years.
foebee (64 months ago | reply)
i started off saying " i really liked this", but actually i more than liked it, i wanted to pick up those journals and dive into the real thoughts, the real days, the life that you've lived - if u do ever decide to throw them away, ship them to me instead...because the moments you cringe over are probably some of the most exciting and true... exactly what everybody wants to be reading....thank you
viacreativa (64 months ago | reply)
This came up when i typed in 'wedding, dress, back' into the search box. Not a picture of a wedding dress perhaps, but a wonderful 'find': a treasure to wonder at.
caffeinated_spider (63 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called The Boy Bedlam Review, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.
abrahamlarsen [deleted] (62 months ago | reply)
I loooooooove this photo!
stephanie-sas (60 months ago | reply)
If these excerpts were a book, I could not put it down. Your writing is brilliant, insightful, and worthy of sharing.
ohMyMyMy (60 months ago | reply)
great shot. and thanks for the glimpse
Dew Drop (59 months ago | reply)
It's a gift to write that well. But it's an even bigger gift to find the time to revisit that you wrote over the past years and reflect and share :)
I truly enjoyed reading those verses :)
romanlily (59 months ago | reply)
Thank you for the kind comments, guys. I really appreciate them.
SerialCoder (58 months ago | reply)
This image has been added to the Flickr Museum for making explore's top 25. Kudos!You can check it out here...
Chelsea123 (58 months ago | reply)
This iss so beautiful to me. I keep journals and so far i have over 10 filled. It keeps Me thinking and questioning everything. This picture just seems to capture all the feelings I get from reading back on old journals. Thank you for sharing the yearly entries. They're all interesting =]