Good Luck Journal

            One of my projects over the last year or so is to go back and read from the beginning the journals that I began keeping in about 1970.  They were originally all hand written and then around 1999 I transitioned to keeping them on computer.  Today I began reading a new volume of my journal.  It begins on June 14, 1990 and leads off with one of the more upbeat entries.

            It is the last school day of the year for Maya, who had just graduated from elementary school and will be headed for middle school.  She received the “Creative Writing Award” for her class and Eli received “Best All Around Student” for his.  Several days later, there are entries saying that Maura’s high school graduation has come up and that she has just been involved in an All State band convention for her school where she had been in charge of orchestrating all of the student activities.  In her class yearbook, she was voted “most likely to return to school as a teacher” and “least likely to ditch college for 4 years and go skiing in the Alps”.  Meanwhile, Melissa had just been promoted to head chorister in her choir at St. Paul’s and was also trying out for a part in a Shakespeare in the Park production in Delaware Park (which she eventually got).  Pat was beginning one of those boring summer jobs that everyone needs to be able to put under their belt and say – thank God it’s not my career.

            While I know that for some journal writing seems a form of narcissism, to me it is not only just a safety net for my own memories (and a way of keeping those memories I have honest). When I read in just a few pages about what talented (and now successful) kids I have, it allows me realize just how exceptionally lucky I am.  While I was never the type of parent to go around forcing pictures of my children on unsuspecting strangers I have always been proud of them and feel compelled to admit that my good luck continues:  Eli’s architecture firm is going well and he is now “flipping” his first house; Pat was just named general council for his law firm; Maura was been put in charge of operations for implementing new computer programs at her job; Melissa has gotten her yoga instructor’s certifications and is teaching classes; and Maya is in charge of front desk operations and scheduling for CHF (she has also finished writing her first novel).  Of, course, I’m not bragging…  

            In addition to what I re-discovered about my kids, I also found within the first few pages a two other things that were a bit more arcane.  The first was a note mentioning that Dad was one of the people who helped build the original golf course at Disney World – there’s a huge back-story there, the second was a poem I’d discovered I’d written that I had completely forgotten.  Since it is November and my productive output this year is zilch, I think I will simply steal from the past and reprint it here:

In the basement

of an abandoned house

Tinkerbell is trapped

n a Franklin stove.

Her faint light flickers.

The audience has all gone home.

She strains at the sound

of imagined applause,

it is only a bulldozer overhead

sharpening its jaws

to raze the building

where a drive thru bank

will be erected

Aside from the capitalization and lack of punctuation, I’d actually say it was finished.

            I could perhaps embarrass all five of my children by also reprinting poems that they wrote when they were young and that I have also kept in the journal. Since none of them have deemed poetry a worthwhile pursuit for an adult, however, I’ll leave their past efforts to the past. I think their current successes stand them in good enough stead.