compositions of the past

It doesn’t help to change the look of my blog to make it more readable and then write nothing. This is unless of course someone just wants to go back and re-read all the previous entries. But not even I really do that. Maybe in a few years, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I can go back and re-read some. I say this because I have composition books from 14 years ago and maybe even some spiral notebooks from the fifth and sixth grade.
I discovered composition books in the 7th grade and since then they have always been my favorite thing to write important stuff in. I have one that I started in the summer of 1996. Harrison was two, Naomi wasn’t 6 months yet and Prajna and I were living in Kihei getting ready to go to Hungary. I journaled through training expressing how panicked I was. I wrote about a dream/vision I had that reassured me. The day after we arrived in Budapest I sat in the living room of our flat and wrote for 8 or 10 pages chronicling leaving Pasadena, the long plane ride and the night in Helsinki, the arrival in Budapest and our first two days there. Our second day in Budapest Prajna and I rode some public transportation and got ejected for not having valid tickets. We ended up walking home and that afternoon is when I wrote it all down.
I wrote about my first day at school. The following weeks I wrote bits and pieces saying what was happening and how I was feeling. I wrote how thrilled I was to learn we would have a third child and then I wrote an account of Benjamin’s birth.
My second year I wrote very little. I made deliberate entries at significant times including my last day at school. I wrote that last entry in the journal after being back in Hawaii for 6 months. I described the day Sarah was born.
I’ve got other composition books bulging with stuff. I wrote angry entries after losing Naomi. In the same book I tried to journal every morning for a while but they all seem pretty much alike whining how tired I am.
So the 1996-1998 composition book journal is one book I like to look back on. It has panic and joy and travel and comfort. It wouldn’t be too much interest to many others but it is something I will treasure forever.