Dear Diary

One of my favorite songs from long ago began, "Well hello there, dear old friend of mine. You've been reaching for yourself for such a long time. There's so much to say. No need to explain. Just an open door for you to come in from the rain."
That's how I feel about my writing.  I've been away for a long time.
When I was a girl, I kept a diary.  It had a lock. In the early days of my journaling, I wrote in what was called a 5 Year Diary - with space for about an inch of writing per day per year.  I soon moved beyond those limited margins and disregarded the lines converting five years into one day per page. I sometimes wonder what it is that draws us to this self-reflection process. As a young girl I poured out my feelings to my diary always with the opening "Dear Diary" as if it were a trusted friend.
Uncensored and emotionally raw,  my diary contained my secrets, my loves, my heartbreaks, my fury, my thoughts, my fears. It was a conversation with myself or perhaps more to the point, with my psyche. The compunction to keep a diary had less to do with self-importance or that I was recording anything remarkable.  It was a simple chronicle of my day to day experience as an adolescent coming of age in the 1970's.  Even that makes the process sound too lofty and purpose- driven.
Whatever the drive to write, it stayed with me. The little paisley books were replaced with various journals. Some with lines. Others blank. Some spiral-bound. Others with colorful covers and quotes.  Shelves full of them. My life is an open book.
Blogging, while not as uncensored as the pages of my personal journals, is an extension of that process. The pen, replaced by the keyboard, still unlocks insights, ideas, and feelings undiscovered, unexpressed - leading to a deeper understanding of myself.
It is a familiar act that brings with it a sense of well being.
So why have I stayed away from it recently?
Well for one thing, my computer blew up.
Fortunately, my trusty pen and newest journal (a gift from my sister-in-law) served as an outlet for my venting and spewing  just like in the days of my adolescence.
But in truth, sometimes our day in and day out experiences are so overwhelming that writing about them is the last thing you want to do.
Now that there is a light at the end of the tunnel I have emotional space to process my experience and to reflect on it.  When you are in the thick of it, sometimes it takes too much energy to even turn on the computer or to pick up the pen.
The fact that I've figured out how to write on my blog using an iPad instead of a computer is a sign of my recovery.  This hasn't been an easy task.  The touch pad drove me crazy until I discovered a little keyboard that can be attached to the iPad making it a mini-computer-like experience. I still have to point at the screen when I make a mistake which is annoying.   I find myself pointing to the monitor attached to my desk-top computer at school trying to get it to do something until I remember to use the mouse.  Such is the new technology.  At least I'm back to the page!
Writing is like an old friend.  I've missed it and it feels good to be back.

A Process Observed

I've been thinking a lot about my brother lately. What he loved. His relationships. His occupation. His hobby. His choices. Why he did and did not do certain things. What motivated him. What he might have thought about. His secrets. His regrets. His pain. His fears.

In other words, my brother has at last become a character to me.

This is a good thing.

I've been writing about my brother since 1994. First, in my journal as I recorded the unfolding real-life drama that resulted in his death-bed, our vigil, and the aftermath of grief turned depression that engulfed me for several years after.
The raw, emotional entries are contained in various styles of journals. Some with lines. Some without. Some with inspirational quotes on the cover, others plain black. Some bound. Some spiral. I was not consistent in my choice of journal like some people are. It has made for an uneven mishmash on my bookshelf.

Yes, on my bookshelf.

I've kept them all. I've not counted how many there are. And I've not burned them.

I have re-read some of them occasionally wincing along the way. They are a chronicle, a real-time record of my experience during a time of despair and descent into a health care system when AIDS was still relatively young.

In case of a fire, I would grab my journals before other precious keepsakes, they are that important to me.

As the years went on, my writing transformed itself into a collection of poems and essays. Some good. Some bad. What began in my wild scrawl in the journal as a synthesis of my experience ended up typed on a page with titles.

A first step in distancing myself. A first step toward transforming the pain into art. A first step toward clarity and meaning.

This went on for years. In workshops. On the beach. In my bed. At my desk. The typed pages tucked into a sunflower folder. Depending on my circumstances or emotional state, the folder would either sit on top of the desk - a priority. Or be stuck in a drawer for up to a year at a time. When we moved, the folder and journals lived in file boxes in the garage. I published a few individual pieces. My musician friend even wrote music for a few of the poems for a dramatic reading during Lent.

Over the past two years, I began to weave the individual pieces into a narrative - a memoir of sorts. I spent most of last summer on this project at my desk. I turned the memoir over to my writing teacher, Cecilia Woloch, who made comments on it and returned the manuscript to me

Fifteen years, and I was finally able to edit the most important story of my life. Phrases, lines, images, metaphors that I'd clung to were with one stroke of the key deleted.

Distance was serving my art.

My writing was no longer therapy. It had become craft. New questions began to emerge. What story am I telling? Whose story is it? How do I tell the story? What genre? Memoir? Opera? Oratorio?

Years have passed. The AIDS journey has changed. My story is now a period piece. A new distance.

I've spent my entire career in the theatre as an actress, director, and teacher. Two weeks ago, I sat down with my memoir and a stack of journals and I began writing it all over again.
This time as a play.

Only something incredible has happened. The characters have had the impulse to sing.

My brother is once again, my muse.

Only this time, our collaboration is on a musical.

C.S. Lewis published "A Grief Observed" a year after the death of his wife.

Mine has taken over fifteen years and I'm starting over.

Or am I?

Maybe these characters are singing because I have at last found my voice.

Sage Voices - A Reading

Purple Sage Authors
Read their own work
Tuesday February 23rd
7:00 p.m.
Academy of Performing Arts
St. Paul Lutheran
111 Las Palmas Drive
Fullerton
Featuring
Mary Aposhian, Stan Beatty, Loree Brooks,
Judie Dee, Diohne Gormley, Jim Haddad
Glory Hucko, Barbara Littrell, Betty McCallister
and Connie Wolf