I always thought that I'd remember every single detail of my wedding day. Instead, I can only recall a few moments: a brief fire alarm at the reception hotel the night before the big day; me and my friend James having a quick cigarette outside the gas station on our way to the church; the homily at our ceremony; the highly festive mood at the reception. I remember how our whole wedding day finished by 2 or 3PM, and that Jenn and I ordered room service at the hotel.
The day itself now feels insignificant, after these many years. There was a report on the news the other day about a wedding couple who got swindled out of their wedding photos by a fraudulent photographer, and Jenn jokingly asked "do you even know where our wedding album is?" (It's somewhere.) The day itself, the wedding, was just the first step of a long odyssey that finds me here, thinking about where it's led. Thinking content thoughts.
Jenn and I got married twelve years ago today.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Diaries
I read an article a few weeks back about Ronald Reagan's diaries. During his presidency (1981 through 1989), he wrote a diary entry every day, in long hand. Excerpts were published in Vanity Fair, and the writing reveals a terse prose. The entry after his attempted assassination in March 1981: "Getting shot hurts."
It must be hard to write a diary when you know that scholars will one day want to read them. His diary entries were source material for his memoir, and for the press during the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal.
I've always considered diaries and journals to be private matters. I keep a diary, and I once thought I was writing it for some "future reader." Now I well understand that I'm writing only for my "future self." As such, my diary prose is often long-winded. Unlike Reagan, who didn't spell out expletives (e.g. he used "h--l" and "d---"), I use them quite liberally, and in all caps (my diaries are electronic) with plenty of exclamation points.
I'm not the president, so I can rest assured that my diary will disappear when I eventually shake off my mortal coil. But until then, I'll need to keep writing in it because "the future me" is still interested.
It must be hard to write a diary when you know that scholars will one day want to read them. His diary entries were source material for his memoir, and for the press during the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal.
I've always considered diaries and journals to be private matters. I keep a diary, and I once thought I was writing it for some "future reader." Now I well understand that I'm writing only for my "future self." As such, my diary prose is often long-winded. Unlike Reagan, who didn't spell out expletives (e.g. he used "h--l" and "d---"), I use them quite liberally, and in all caps (my diaries are electronic) with plenty of exclamation points.
I'm not the president, so I can rest assured that my diary will disappear when I eventually shake off my mortal coil. But until then, I'll need to keep writing in it because "the future me" is still interested.
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