I have kept journals on my kids since they were born, though in recent years, my entries have become more and more sporadic. I often think to write in the journals, but get distracted--typically by the siren call of some electronic device.
But in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, that excuse was no longer at hand. In fact, the siren call was to read, play card or board games, and taking advantage of what daylight there was, to write in my children's journals. The last entries in each, I found, went all the way back to May of 2012. I didn't even attempt to capture all that's transpired in the intervening months, nor could I. The journals are memory keepers precisely because my mind doesn't hold memories at all well.
It was surprisingly soothing to sit and write. Old-fashioned. With a pen. On paper. It seems a rare thing these days to be alone with one's thoughts, to have enough quiet so you can hear the stream of ideas and see the stream of images in your own mind. It was a treat to spend time reflecting on these past months, to think of how my kids fared, at school, at camp, at work. Some of the reflections expose the ongoing challenges of parenting, but in reading earlier entries, I am reminded of how if you leave things alone for a time, sometimes, they (re)solve themselves. That is probably more often the case in the fraught relations between parents and children than we realize.
There is nothing profound in these musings other than, perhaps, the implicit gratitude in having a home still to write in, whether by daylight, candlelight, or flashlight. I am haunted by my friend Rebecca's Facebook posting about a Staten Island mother whose children slipped out of her arms during the storm. Holding my children close, in actuality and via the reflections in my journal entries, is a privilege I hope I never take for granted. I hope none of us ever does.
