First Page of Pandemic Journal #1 – Photo: L. Weikel

We’re all familiar with the saying: “There’s a first time for everything.” Little did I know at the beginning of this momentous year of 2020 that the expression would apply to a devastating experience with one of my journals.

As I mentioned in my post last night, I reached the natural conclusion of my then current spiral notebook journal at the beginning of April this year. Filled that baby up. Of course, that prompted me to begin a new one, the first entry of which was on April 7, 2020. On the very first page, I dubbed it my Pandemic Journal, because in spite of all the reassurances from on high that it would “all go away like a miracle” one day, my instincts (and ability to read well-researched, science-based articles) told me otherwise. The prospects felt ominous.

A Long History

I’ve been keeping a journal for at least 45 years. Wow. Seeing that in writing really drives it home. I know it to be a pretty accurate estimate because when I became an exchange student to Sweden my senior of high school, I’d already been keeping track of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences for at least two years. And once I arrived in Sweden, my journal was my refuge. In fact, as I became fluent in Swedish through that year, I even started writing my journal in Swedish to prove to myself that I could do it.

My habit of documenting my life’s experiences continued unabated (and perhaps became even more ingrained due to the daily parade of new countries and adventures) as I backpacked around Europe with a Swedish chum a month before returning home and starting college.

I’ll admit that there were times when I would go days, then weeks – and even, especially in college, months – without writing. I’d always regret the lapse when I picked up a pen again. In college, I used a Day Planner my father gave me for Christmas each year. It didn’t have a lot of room to write in each day, which in some ways was probably perfect. I could at least make time to jot down whatever was most significant about a particular day.

Throughout It All

Thus for the past 45 years or so, I’ve kept journals. Throughout all my travels, all my experiences, journeying from Sweden to New Mexico, Buffalo to Peru, Seattle to Siberia, I never – not once – lost or mangled a journal.

Not until 2020.

Specifically, on Thursday, July 30, 2020, I dutifully recorded a variety of observations, from the very personal to the fact that the president was starting to float the idea of postponing the election. I remarked just how oppressively hot it was that day and how disheartened I was becoming over the trajectory of our country.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I left my journal, along with a Medicine Card book, buried amongst the mound of pillows piled upon the glider where I usually sit when writing on my porch. Karl and I took a walk that evening and upon returning, I forgot to retrieve it. I left it outside overnight – and of course, there was a wild and thoroughly drenching torrential downpour that raged for hours that night.

I Searched High and Low

Friday morning I searched everywhere for my journal. I turned my bedroom upside down, my living room inside out. I looked on the porch several times, but with great relief found nothing – until I started dismantling the mountain of pillows and cushions to place them out in the sun to dry. It’s hard to express the horror I felt when I made my grim discovery.

Indeed, I even wrote (in my first entry of my present journal) how the magnitude of the soaking storm that occurred that Thursday evening was so extreme that, had it been a storm of any normal size, the journal would’ve been protected. First of all, it had a thick plastic cover on it. Second of all, it was so deeply buried – under several layers of pillows. It was outrageously ridiculous that so much rain fell that evening such that everything – all those layers – became utterly waterlogged.

Indeed, for days afterward, I would sit on that glider and water would drip out of the bottom-most cushions.

Simply Devastated

I was stunned. In shock. For the first time ever, I’d failed to take care of my journal. I’d neglected one of my most sacred objects.

It probably sounds weird, but I’ve been too ashamed to even write about and confess this publicly until now. While I realize it is just words, it’s not a human being, nor a beloved pet, I experienced a deep and irretrievable loss.

Once I write something down, I let it go. I give myself permission to release the need to obsessively try to remember all the details of everything I experience. And through the pandemic up to that point, I’d been tracking a number of dreams and journeys (the shamanic kind) that seemed particularly significant. A few in particular almost felt prophetic, and documenting them in my journal was my best way of keeping track.

To make matters worse, I may have mentioned before that I write dreams and journeys in different colors in my journals to make them stand out. It’s then easier for me to locate those extraordinary moments when I go searching for them later. Imagine my dismay – my actual sense of mourning – when I realized that my journeys and dreams had literally been washed away. For whatever reason, the colors I use for those special events orange, green, and red, of the very same pens I use in black and blue ink to write my everyday experiences, ‘ran’ completely off the pages, leaving nary a trace behind.

Started Anew

So on August 2^nd, 2020, I began my Pandemic Journal #2. Of course, I’ve kept the first, as can be seen from the photos I’m including with this post. But sadly, it seems only my more mundane entries can still be read. While I’m grateful that anything could be salvaged…

The loss is real.

(T-355)