Voices: Abigail Thomas on Keeping a Diary

I have kept journals and diaries for years. I've made sense of my world and the things in it by writing it all down. It was the first place where I realized I love the written word. It's probably also the reason I waited so long to write anywhere else. My creative drive was satisfied with what I wrote in private.

Until recently, when people told me I should write a book, I laughed. I thought it was an outrageous idea. But really, I already was a writer. I had been one for years. Of all the kinds of writing, I still love journals and diaries most. I love that they are authentic and rough hewn and raw -- so close to the life that fed them, as to be indistinguishable from it.

That's why I enjoyed the passage below immensely. It's got warmth, honesty, and a gentle humor which kept me smiling long after I read it. There's no better way to understand your own story than to start writing it down. I'll add to that, there's no better way to understand yourself as a writer.

From Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas:

So there are hours of mulling, stewing, allowing the mind to let down its guard, but the rest of it is the writing part. It helps to be in the daily habit of scribbling stuff down. I suggest you go to the stationery store and pick out a notebook you actually like . . . You can't whip out your laptop on the crowded number one train at rush hour, but you can probably get to your notebook when you hear something you want to remember, or glimpse a memory of the kind that vanish so quickly. I once observed a father holding his son on his lap and the little boy sat straight up, like a vase of flowers. I wrote it down . . .

Call it a diary -- it is less imposing than a journal, which sounds like an end in itself. I steer clear of the word journal -- and its spawn, the verb to journal, as in "I have been journaling all my life." If I were to call my notebook a journal I would probably write with the notion that it be published someday, preferably posthumously, and people would marvel. This would make me self-conscious. I would be trying to perfect each sentence before its time. I prefer notes; if I clean it up too fast, I lose the spark. Everything goes in: grocery lists, things to do (so I can scratch them off), random observations, knitting patterns, recipes, overheard dialogue, everything. A diary isn't sacred. Think of it as the written equivalent of singing in the shower. I don't care what I'm writing about and I don't pay any attention to language. Most of what's in there is boring, but it keeps me in the habit. Writing doesn't have to be good, not at first.

By now I am addicted. I need to feel my hand scribbling across a page. A friend wanted to know what I was working on; she was reading the paper and I was writing in my diary. We were having coffee at Bread Alone.

"Nothing," I said.

"It can't be nothing," she said, assuming perhaps that writers were always doing something interesting. She leaned over and read, "It is taking a long time to get my sandwich."

Case closed.

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What's one silly or uninteresting thing you like to write down?

Writing: The Story I Never Meant to live

So here I am at a bookstore in Asheville, wondering what is happening to me and what is coming next. We've had no power or Internet or TV since Friday morning at breakfast. This last week was nearly unbelievable to me, as one thing after another tumbled out of the sky onto us.

The landscape around the house looks like a war zone. Every tree has lost it's upper half or more. The ice hangs like daggers from each remaining branch. We must be right at the spot where the storm turned from rain to frozen forms -- there was so much water in it. These hills will need years to recover.

Lately I've wondered if we are like that landscape, if the storms we go through can create so much damage that we are years in recovery. I think I already know the answer, but I don't like it. I've been feeling bleak every time I gaze out a window.

I'm convinced that part of my problem is that I was not prepared. Not for the length of the wait for our "normal life" to resume. Not for the severity of the winter. Not for the other issues bearing down on me.

When I had a baby, I was prepared for it to be hard in certain ways -- sleepless nights, my body recovering, sickness, and stress. When I decided to homeschool, I knew I was undertaking a serious challenge. I knew I'd be stretched to my limits. When we bought an old house, I knew the sorts of things it might involve. I expected the trouble that came. I took on these things with my eyes wide open.

But I was not prepared for this. Somehow, it matters.

Late last night, the generator stalled because it was low on oil. My husband had to drive on icy roads under power lines which had icy trees hanging on them. I lay down in the dark and listened to the trees breaking and falling while I waited for him to return. After what seemed like forever, he was home again. Then he had to go outside with a flashlight and fill the generator with oil. He took a long time getting back to sleep. Early this morning, I kept waking him as I made coffee and toast in the kitchen.

But he never complained.

I wasn't ready for a storm like this. I wasn't ready for a life like the one I am living. I'm finding myself in the middle of a story that I don't know how to navigate, one where I don't have any inkling of the next chapter. This sort of thing is thrilling to read -- when it's happening to someone else, and I have the distance and perspective of looking back over time.

Somehow, my husband knew how I was feeling, knew what the problem was. He knew he couldn't bring back our "normal" life. But he talked to me and charmed me into coming with him today. We drove to Asheville, 30 minutes from our house on the interstate. We had sandwiches and coffee at a little shop and then walked over to a bookstore. He packed my laptop, too, and carried it from the car into the coffee shop. And even though I didn't think any of this would help, I do feel better now.

There were no lectures or sermons about trusting God more or keeping my chin up. Just a warm smile and a cheery voice and calm, steady hands driving the car, carrying my things, and holding mine.

And it helped, better than any words could have.

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Can you remember a time when a friend helped you just by being there?

The Story of Your Life in Hard Times

If I were a bear

And a big bear too,

I shouldn't much care

If it froze or snew;

I shouldn't much mind

If it snowed or friz -

I'd be all fur-lined

With a coat like his.

- Winnie the Pooh, "Fuzzy Bear"

The sky is falling on us.

I am trying to imagine it getting any worse, so I will feel better. Snow began yesterday afternoon. We awoke in the dark early this morning to the generator. The world outside is sheathed in ice. Our forecast calls for freezing rain all day, followed by snow tomorrow.

This storm is the latest in a series of them, pummeling us, one after another. The snow and ice are falling onto the foot of it that fell last weekend. It ends late Saturday. Then another is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

Our ice age has begun, and we were sleeping. We brought little to no winter clothing with us. We expected a southern climate. Instead, just 20 minutes from South Carolina, we find ourselves in the northern heights.

Now we shall see the stuff of which we are made. These are the times that try us and shape us, even as we shape them. It's easy to feel powerless against forces like this. But even here, it isn't true.

Our choices propel our story. Our choices help write the life we live. It's as though God made our world and made us and put us in it, saying, Go make a story. Go make a life, a little story inside my great story.

I think he's pleased with what he made. And he's pleased with what we make. Even if we aren't doing it all that well, even if we stumble and make mistakes, even if we are sometimes foolish, he watches us as delightedly as a young father watches his infant try to take the first step.

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What choices are you making to help write the story of your life?

Photograph, copyright 2010 by Benjamin Frear.

Writing: My Story

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,

of just going along, listening to all the things

you can't hear, and not bothering.

- Winnie the Pooh

Piglet, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

The days become a blur when I don't write about them.

I can't decide. Are they a blur because they are so busy and that's why I don't write? Or are they a blur because I don't write about them? Am I carried along by urgent demands because I have not stepped aside from the daily stream of them and so I lose track of the days and myself in them?

One thing is sure. Writing changes my life. It changes me. I live a different life when I write, because I write.

Writing about my life gives me a chance to stand outside it and view it from a third-person perspective. As I consider what is happening, I can see that I have a spectrum of choices. I don't simply have to react. I can ponder and live deliberately.

In doing this, I come closer to the purity of what drives a story. Any story. Whether it's a real flesh-and-blood life or one I create on a page. Sure, there are a lot of things that happen to us which we can't control. But we are always in the process of choosing what to do, how to think.

And this, more than anything else, drives the stories that we live.

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What's one important choice you made in the past that changed your life?

New for 2010 !

Here's the new posting schedule I am trying:

The Moonboat Cafe will continue to publishing posts Monday through Friday of each week. Here, we'll continue our discussions about noticing and enjoying the life we have been given.

On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I'll publish a post on Light for My Lamp. This is a devotional blog which will focus on enjoying a relationship with God. I had dropped this blog in October because I didn't feel that I was writing it from my true writer's voice. I have refashioned it now so that it is consistent with my core message.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I will publish a post for Apple Pie. This means you can read one short, practical article about life at home on every other day during the week.

I've started to work on some longer writing projects. As most of you already know, that means I'll have to budget my writing time wisely. So if I find that I can't keep up with this many posts, I'll have to trim back a bit more. But for now, this looks like a good experiment. Of course, I don't expect anyone to read it all. I think it's more likely that people will gravitate toward the topics they like best.

Today, you can hop over to Light for my Lamp and read a post there.

Writing: A Side Door

Memory is a man's real possession . . .

In nothing else is he rich,

in nothing else is he poor.

- Alexander Smith

Memory is a funny thing. We don't remember everything. In fact, we don't remember most of our lives. Some people feel that this is sad. But I think it keeps us sane.

How could we carry all the pain and grief and disappointment and joy and ecstasy and hilarity in our heads at one time? There isn't room for it.

So we carry pieces of it. And somewhere, somehow, even though we don't carry all of it, a lot is stored up in our mental archives. The trick is to find ways to tap into them.

It's odd how the smallest thing can be a side door into memory.

We can smell a perfume and suddenly remember that a piano teacher wore it. We can see the glasses on the nose, hear the voice instructing us, remember the assignments -- favorites and those we didn't like. We can recall the afternoon light filtering into the room and how the piano bench felt under our legs. I remember sweating and feeling the stickiness of it and worrying that I would leave white marks on the wood. Like I said, it's odd how small things become side doors.

But I should notice.

Because the side doors are clues to what my story is all about. I recall things for a reason. If I begin writing about the small things I remember, I find big themes showing up -- things that are universal like the longing to be loved and the fear of losing myself and the way life is so much work.

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What's one small, random thing you can recall about your childhood?

Adventure By The Sea: Aftermath

We drove home with sand in our shoes. I even had some in my hair.

While I sipped a cup of coffee and listened to a recording of the Renaissance music from the concert, my husband quietly and deftly maneuvered through evening traffic. At one point, I reached over and rested my hand on his shoulder.

I could swear that a current of energy flowed from him to me, and back. Neither of us said anything. We didn't need to.

What awaits us? We don't know. Uncertainty looms ahead of us like the slate gray blanket of storm clouds that covered the Carolina sky. We drove into cold rain and into the mountains and into winter again.

But we still have the memory of the sun.

Two days later, I was cleaning out my purse and found a travel guide. There hadn't been time to look at it before now. I opened the first page to find a birds-eye view of the harbor. I could see where we had walked. I could see the beautiful buildings. Next to it was a picture of the dancing fountains where we'd eaten our bagels and beside it was a photograph of my favorite house.

On the back of the guide was the scene of the ocean, some palm trees, and a moonboat -- hanging there like a ship ready to sail, waiting in the navy sky.

Oh, didn't I tell you? Both nights by the sea, as we stepped out onto the courtyard, the moon was like butter, a crescent lying on its side in a navy sky, just above a palm tree.

Waiting, just for us.

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What's your favorite landscape or setting for creating romantic memories?