Self Narrative

Just after college, I, like many, did the post-college European tour. It was a way for me to get cultured, or at least get a bit of culture outside of my small town, Midwestern Lutheran shell. And of course, it was eye opening. Even though the bubble of Western Civilization continued to protect me, I saw things that caused me to reflect some. Partly for that reason, and partly just to document the first of what I was sure would be many eye-opening experiences in diverse countries I started writing down what I did everyday in a spiral notebook. The spiral was messy and bulky and quickly filled, so I bought a hard cover journal. The sturdiness of it gave it a quality that made me want to fill it with beautiful things, so I wrote notes neatly, included careful drawings, and added ideas for future travel plans -- what bring next time, how to better pack, etc.

When I returned to the Midwest I continued journaling. Since I didn't have travel thoughts, I filled it with the details of everyday life, work, school, veiled references to relationships philosophical musings, and political reactions, and started to approach the journal as a document of growth and self-improvement.

I've looked back at them from time to time, in order to try to summarize what I'd learned with varying success. Mostly I noted serially recursive cycles that centered on trying to be a better poet, better artist, and better partner. I'd never seriously considered what my entries as a whole said. When I asked a friend in the social services what question I was trying to answer in this narrative, she opened a journal at random and found

"Wed. July 12, 1995 -- Honeywell Corporate headquarters. Teleconference room. Here for the Tuesday Communications Department Monthly staff meeting… Sigh" and answered:

What is it like to live as a white man in a society that is dominated by privileged white men?

She was on to something, so I skimmed through my journals and grabbed answers to her question. This story is fragmented -- a somewhat random collection of my notes from the years after I'd rejected my place in life according to the religion of my youth, as I was looking for my own footing.

Red Journal

May 4, 1992 -- Today was frustrating: tried to get a cash advance because I have 0 monies. After 3 places, I can only get it in Polish Zlotys -- not gonna do much good in Germany.

May 15, 1992 -- The highlight of Oslo, for me was Vigeland Park (also called Frogner park), which was chock full of nude statues of humans at every stage of life cycle. From birth to death, every age and emotion, in family and love. It was (is) a very human park, and it’s just beautiful, wonderful. Makes you look at the world and around you and say "We all have the same fears, needs, and wants. We're all the same in some ways."

August 26, 1992 -- [working at a camp in Seattle] I meet Genine [from Australia -- we met in Belgium] in a few days. I'm not sure what to do with that. I want to take the Green Tortoise, and Amtrak, rather than my car. I want to see Portland and Eugene, Oregon, and Northern California. I want to camp at Yellowstone, to visit my friends in Boulder, to see the Grand Canyon, then I want to go home, and see Dan and Ramona, and have a beer, and get my master's degree...

Black Journal

Thursday, August 19, 1993 -- After hiking for a while, you get good at living simply. The "less is more" concept becomes a well-meditated way, embodied with every heavy step.

Tuesday, November 16, 1993 -- I am registered for next semester: technical illustration, Fiction Workshop, Life Drawing II, Intro to Photo, an Independent Study on Wordsworth and Keats, and American Literature since 1945, which I'm hoping I waive for "Major Works in Native American Literature". I need the former to fulfill the "American lit" requirement, but hey, what's more American than Native American?

Monday, October 9, 1994 -- Wow! I just looked at my body in the mirror. This past month of 60+ hours/week in a chair has wreaked havoc on my frame. In just one month, I went from a hardened, bronzed summer camp canoeist to an office-sitting, white-and-fleshy, pot-bellied, pimple-butted telephone answerer.

Sunday, October 22, 1994 -- Yesterday we walked across town to a spot along the river where they cremate their dead. Bodies were lined up to be burned. I should not be there. I feel that fairly often around here… Dust, Diesel, Death: the three scents of Kathmandu.

Brown Journal

Sunday, 1-15-94 -- I've been thinking about the layouts of bathrooms. Dave's is set up like this [drawing] with the sink pipes on the opposite wall of the tub pipes…If I designed the bathroom, I'd have all the pipes on the inside wall and a composting toilet next to a long frosted window. And the tub would have a side spout instead of one sticking into the back of the other person in the tub.

Wed. July 12, 1995 -- Honeywell Corporate headquarters. Teleconference room. Here for the Tuesday Communications Department Monthly staff meeting… Sigh.

Thursday, July 27, 1995 -- This afternoon I'll talk to Janet about the tech. writing job. I don't think I want it. I suspect I'd have to take a urinalysis to stay, and I've already established that I oppose those. I'm all for the trees here though, even when they're planted inside.

Green Journal

January 17, 1996 -- Pottery! classes start in February at the Edina Arts Center.

January 18, 1996 -- Icy night last night Woodworking took hours to get to (traffic was horrible), but coming home afterwards was easy. I met Ramona for coffee… In woodworking I perfected the router jig that will cut the finger joints for my boxes….

Tuesday, August 6, 1996 -- [Day 10 of the Allagash Waterway canoe trip] Woke up to loud crashing just outside the tent; a huge bull moose staggering to the water (clump! Crash! Snap! Clump!) then Splash! Splash! Splash! In the water with antlers the size of Alaska, and I'm out the door (ziiip! ziiip!) with my camera (click! click!) and back in the tent to slap the rogue mosquito that had flittered inside, and fell into a dream.

3/27/97 Monday -- [In New York] Then there's the whole show of William deKoonig's latest works (1980s) which I saw in Minneapolis at the Walker, and was not impressed with. Lots of 8'x'8' canvases that I think were made in a sort of "Come on and pump out these money-makers!" De Koonig was in his 80s or 90s with Alzheimer's, so his wife and agent put him in a nice studio and kept supplying canvas and paint, and half out of his mind, he pumped out a ton of these things. But I'm glad I saw it here too because the coolest thing about this show is that one of the windows has a slice of light coming down between two skyscrapers and makes a tight line across the corner, very Modrian (or is it Mondrian?)

Sunday, September 14, 1997 -- Jim once told me that if I'm going to be a writer I should write optimistic stories. It's funny how rare those are in the annals of contemporary American literature.

Saturday, 8.15.98 [Phish "Lemonwheel" concert] -- 2 1/2 miles of runway and lots of beer bottles, many folks selling food + beer + pot + etc. But many more walking around asking for "nuggets" and dank bud" and I'm glad I don't smoke. Cigarrette vendors and butts litter the grounds and the vernacular is sheepishly, or lemmingly hip; and now at 8:30am folks are waking and I think I'll sleep a bit longer. I was up at 7am and washed.

Friday, September 17, 1999 -- Wednesday afternoon college buddy Dan Stotz went kayaking outside Fort Collins. His friends helped him successfully run Poudre Falls. The he got caught in the current and kept going backwards over the next "unrunnable" set of falls. He died. Damn, huh?

12.28.99 -- "I suppose she had been solely attracted by the obscurity of my poetry; then tore a hole through its veil and saw a stranger's unlovable face" (from "That in Aleppo Once" by Vladimir Nabokov).

January 27, 2000 -- Back in the grind, in the swing of the semester. As exciting and groundbreaking as new technology is, its not satisfying to me. The best thing about classes this semester is not the ones I'm teaching, but the ones I'm taking -- life drawing. I leave it exhausted and refreshed all at once, whereas my Ed Tech classes I leave exhausted, worried, and annoyed. What fun is that?

[My toes are whiny]
[My woes are tiny.]

Yellow Journal

Thurs • July 6 • 2000 -- It's a near-perfect night on Craig Pond. The lake is glass smooth. The frogs are croaking away like a chorus of bedsprings in a whorehouse of moderation and rhythm. The loons are drifting by the ledges echoing out a cry of compassion for all those lost and lonely tonight. I took the Brown and White tonight, the 1997 canoe, cedar and canvas of course, but with walnut gunwales and ash thwarts, and decks of the two woods laminated as stripes. It's a beautiful boat and it handles like silk pajamas on satin sheets -- just glides along the surface. Butter.

January 31, 2001 -- One other thing: I like Dar Williams' voice. I love it. I love listening to her, but her lyrics take over my mind. I'd love to have 4 good speakers for my living room. I'd love to be able to work at home without getting distracted. I'd love to have 200GB of mp3s to juke through. I'd love to have more stuff. Why is that? I need less stuff.

Wed. June 6, 2001 -- Waiting for new tires. Part of me is amazed that my wagon is still running strong at 262,000 miles -- strong enough that I'm putting 60,000-mile tires on it. It would be a miracle if those needed to be replaced. Last night at a poetry slam, I read:

In a park
on a bench,
a newspaper,
open to the want ads
bag of popcorn,
empty
ducks,
still wanting.

 

An assignment for my Spring 2003 "Life History Theory and Methods" with Mary Louise Gomez