A part of me laughs reading about
Suleika Jaouad’s journaling practice
The seriousness behind it
The intentionality
I starting journaling
Keeping a diary
Because Elizabeth Wakefield in Sweet Valley High kept a diary
And, because she was the nerdier book-smart twin,
I wanted to be like her
I wrote in code for a bit
To deter prying eyes
But gave it up when my boyfriend (who was studying computer science) figured it out in a few minutes
I still remember the code
My high school friends teased that I would journal on my honeymoon
I did, for the record (haha)
And my (then) husband didn’t mind

I got my first diary for my 10th birthday
Hard cover, blue, with an art nouveau illustration of a woman clutching an armful of fruit on the front, and scented pastel colored pages
Thirty years later there are over 70 journals sitting on the bookshelf
“Lockable” dairies with pale pink pages
Exercise books that I covered with white paper and words cut out from magazines
Lovely leather-bound books with hand-made paper
Pretty cloth-bound books from fancy stationery stores
And even one I made at camp
Mostly there are notebooks of varying sizes,
Books that were easy to carry in my backpack
For writing on the bus or the train
Or, on lucky luxurious days, while hurtling through mid-air on a Boeing bound for someplace else
The pages are filled with angst and dreams, crushes and heartbreaks, joys and boring day-to-day minutiae
Ticket stubs and bits of brochures and seemingly significant fortune cookie predictions
The diaries are not particularly profound
They’re not the record of a historically significant person
I have no idea what will happen to them when I’m gone
But they’re my most prized possession

After I got sick I fell out of the habit
There was so much to say, I couldn’t say anything at all
But I did make an attempt of keeping up with morning pages
A habit started in my mid-twenties
And now I have 31 spiral bound 5-subject notebooks to accompany the journals
Pages and pages of streams of consciousness scribbles

And if I think about it, I also have over a decade of blog posts to add the pile
Poems and scribblings and reflections
Tracing my desire to find the beauty, find the joy, find the light
Amidst break-ups and falling in love and moving away and falling love again and moving away again and cancer and to trying to find the light again

It has been delightfully fun to follow the prompts in Suleika’s book
My favorites so far have included
Write with your non-dominant hand (Marie Howe)
Write a paragraph about the funniest thing to happen to you from the perspective of an inanimate object (Kiese Laymon)
What would you write if you weren’t afraid? (Dani Shapiro)

What would you write if you weren’t afraid?

​I spent the day at Buck’s Rock
Giving a tour in the rain
To new campers and their families
Trying to convey the magic
That happens in the summer
And then I made my way
All the way to BAM
The Brooklyn Academy of Music
To see Suleika Jaouad
Fellow AML survivor and
Journal writer who is
Undergoing her third round of treatment and is
Currently on the New York stop of her book tour

It wasn’t until I was sitting down in my seat
That it occurred to me
BAM was the place where I had my first job post-cancer
I didn’t work there for long
I had gone back to work too soon
I didn’t have the stamina to make it through a shift
But I was desperate to get back to normal
I had to ask for permission to sit down during the show
Another usher saw me and scolded,
“We’re not allowed to sit.”
I wanted to say
“I just had cancer.
I had a transplant.
I can’t stand for long periods.”
Instead I pretended I hadn’t heard her and
Fought back tears.

And now I’m nearly 11 years out.
How did I get so lucky to be here?
When Ruth is gone?
When Miguel is gone?
When Katy is gone?
When Miren is gone?
When Suleika has relapsed twice and is likely to be in treatment for the rest of her life?
Watching her standing up on that stage
Looking absolutely radiant in a bright and colorful dress with a thin gold belt
Her pixie hair sleek against her head
Reading her extraordinary words about fear of mice and cancer and treatment
While her husband, Jon Batiste
Played on the piano behind her
The love between them
The way they seem so grounded
So in touch
So in love

It broke my heart a little
The longing for a creative, spiritual, loving partner
Someone
To traipse across this mortal coil with
The heartbreak of tasting it
And having it taken away
Because I’m not enough?
Because it’s not the right time?
Because of so many factors out of my control
The fear of relapse
The fear of being ok
The fear of having what you want
The fear that you will never fulfill your dreams
Reach your potential
Do the thing you came here to do because
Illness
Pandemic
Politics
Global warming

And it wasn’t until I was on the train home
That I realized that I’d spent the day at camp
(The place where I was diagnosed)
And not once thought about getting sick
I was too busy being excited about the summer to come
Thinking about my to do list
Chatting with the new campers

The day was full of synchronicity
Old camp friends messaging out of the blue as I arrived at camp
Being at camp on the day of Suleika’s New York book tour
The New York stop being at BAM
On a rainy day  
​At the end of April 
Something magical 
Alchemy
From the French, Latin, Greek, and Arabic 
"The pursuit of the transmutation of baser metals into gold,
Search for the universal solvent and the panacea."

A visit to
Edith Wharton’s estate
Designed by the Pulitzer Prize winning author herself
With her eye for classical architecture and
Symmetry and
Clean lines and
Circular shapes
The grounds are extensive
And stunning
Filled with art
Whimsical and thought-provoking and somehow seeming right at home
In the woods
A tour of the house reveals
The luxury and freedom of wealth
Imagine breakfast in bed facing east
Time for morning pages
And walks through the Italian Renaissance garden
And French garden
And walkway lined with trees
And trips to Europe for years on end
And dinner at 8pm
The forest surrounding the house
Most definitely enchanted
Most definitely home to fairy queens
And tiny beings
A new favorite

The gift of
A beautiful first edition book
One hundred and thirteen years old 
Inside, an inscription from the author herself
Written in lovely flowery cursive 
To Mrs. Speed 
Within you'll find a golden ring
Of noble poet friends,
As bright a friendship
May it bring
Twixt you and me and one
who lends  
this gift in loving greeting,
and memory of our meeting. 
Helen A. Clarke 
November fourteenth, 1916 
Boston. 

The joy of archival research
Handling letters sent 100 years ago
The crumbling paper
Making historic confetti

Oh the soothing balm of books 
The joy of wandering through the shelves
The smell of the pages 
The knowledge contained within
Wanting to read everything all at once 
Finding an Ali Smith book
I don't remember reading
And treating myself 
​To her words. 

I finally finished 
Barbra's 48-hour long audiobook
I didn't want it to end
It was astonishing 
Fascinating
Infuriating 
Even at the height of her career
The unrelenting sexism
But the people she met
The projects she worked on
The songs she sang 
The relationships she had 
Extraordinary 

Visiting UNSW
Being awed by the construction
And Miles’ work in the food pantry
Sitting on the Library Lawn
Remembering the lunch time bands
And traipsing around campus at all hours
Flyering and giving tours
Promoting shows and
Tripping the light fantastic
And also the dwelling in the darkest depths
A place where I learnt to write
And studied history
​And put on shows 
And became myself

The luxury of time to write
The loveliness of chili on a chilly afternoon
The joy of laughing with friends
Ending the day with a giant bowl of popcorn
And a mug of hot chocolate

The joy of finding a fascinating book
In a thrift store
(The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham
Heartbreaking, moving, beautifully crafted)
The satisfaction of scoring, and, later, peeling roasted chestnuts
Trying escargot for the first time
Devouring fresh lobstah so flavorful it doesn’t even need butter
Two helpings of cake for dessert and
Snuggles with an elderly gent of a puppy