Journals (and more journals)

27 journals covering nearly 50 years

Even when I packed them all up (all 27 of them) I must admit my ambivalence.  In our relocation to Hawaii, they represented only two boxes, and almost 50 years of journal-keeping.  Lots of people keep journals; mine date back to 1977 and they have been a great tool to work through things both old and icky as well as new and exciting.

But, why keep them?  My dear long time friend Yani smiled when I told her I was bringing them and told me that she too had moved all her journals when she retired to south Kona.  She confessed, though, that the rats finally got into the boxes and made nests -- probably a good metaphor, actually.  Yet, I couldn't bring myself to dispose of them, just yet.

And, so after a year of being in a sealed cardboard box, here in Puna, OF COURSE they were beginning to mold.  It was not a big expenditure of energy to wipe them all down with mold killer, and leave them out to air out before packing them all up again.  So, it is an interesting lesson in our attachment to our own stories -- or at least MY attachment.  I am clearly not ready to toss them out, nor am I willing to let the mold or the rats have them.  For now, I can just observe my obsession, chuckle a little, and withhold judgment for another day.