A scene of life with warm sunshine and laughing faces would jump into my recovering head concussion and jump out. Startled at first I soon realized their importance and carried a small orange pad and pen to jot those memory gems down. The diary began capturing thoughts that appeared as pieces of my lost memory, a flash of recall.
Collecting thoughts on paper at 21 years old in 1974 became my medicine in recovering from the motorcycle crash. The value of relating thoughts to written words was priceless. My lost young life slowly got acquainted to the present and the spiral notebooks became precious diaries.
Communicating with me and releasing the common conversation of an inner dialogue became a friendship I could live with. Watching the sun set while walking the dog was important information to gather and often lead to profound questions and insights. What was the meaning of life? How can I make the most of time which is always moving? Is there a way to find what is best for me? Thinking, writing, releasing thoughts, was and still is cathartic.
Walking in a 1976 snowstorm I began speaking sentences in cadence expressing large ideas ending in a rhyme. Lyrics were born. I finally found an answer to what I would love to work at for pay. The diary collected feelings distilling those emotions into lyrics, with plans to travel to Hollywood, California. From 28 to 36 my west coast years were full of living, loving, struggles, and pains. Boxes of journals were shipped to Ma’s house in NY.
At 36 God gave me spiritual rebirth in North Hollywood California. I was born-again and the diary and lyrics came with me. Still not married there was just the daily diary to tell of the exciting miracle of having a growing relationship with Jesus. The Christian life is a lifelong process. Bible truths, church friends and growth were blended into new stories of life.
Returning to upstate New York the diary and I were like pilgrims surviving in an area that was generally cold toward talk about God. No one wanted to hear about repenting from sin, turning to Jesus and believing He would save you from hell. God sees all of me only He knows me better than I know myself. The diary knew most of my hypocritical truth about the long process of losing sin and gaining righteousness by the power of the Holy Spirit’s conviction and gentle guidance.
The basis of writing , two books of self-examination, The Threshold was built around the diaries. A true friend for 40 years we rolled into 2014 together. Arthritis keeps me away from the pad and pen these days. Instead I speak my diary to the computer and type as little as possible. The value of a diary is not as precious as time. The diary is like a handle holding time.
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