Of journals, newspaper columns and blogs

Unlike a lot of writers, I've never kept a journal, except for a couple of times in English classes when a journal was a required class assignment. I never "got into" journal writing, never disciplined myself into the habit of sitting down daily and reflecting on the day. Now, I find that regrettable, if for no other reason than my memory is faltering. A journal would help me remember what I was doing and what I was feeling in my high school and college years, in the first years of our marriage, in the time I adjusted to fatherhood, as new babies joined our family and as my children struggled through the anxious adolescent years, matured and moved into their independent lives. A journal is a therapy and a meditation; it is also a memory jog.

There are other memory jogs. Occasionally, a photo, a scrap of paper or a whiff of the autumn air will revive a forgotten memory. Sometimes, someone else's recollection will resurrect my own.

Although I never got into the journal habit, I have scattered my memories into words strung together over most of my adult life. Notes, letters, verse and newspaper columns have given me avenues for expression and means for preserving memories. When I cleaned out my office earlier this month, I brought home several manila file folders of newspaper clippings. These are now boxed and bound for the attic, where other clippings lie boxed, turning yellow and brittle with age. These clippings span more than 30 years.

Unfortunately, for much of my newspaper career, I gave little attention to preserving what I had written. I recognized from the beginning that newspaper writing is ephemeral, here today and trash (or recycling) tomorrow, so I had no systematic method of preserving what I had written. That can sometimes be beneficial, as I have sometimes cringed at the excesses of my prose or the grammatical and syntactical errors that went unnoticed years ago. But these embarrassments also reassure me that I have learned, and I have improved as a writer.

Now that my newspaper career is over, I have only this blog to fill my need for expression and to holster my memories. A blog is, if anything, more ephemeral than newspaper columns. Few people read blogs daily. Millions of blogs are scattered across cyberspace like fine seed from a broadcast spreader, few ever taking root. But a blog does have the advantage of a degree of permanence. Earlier posts are available and, presumably, will be as long as personal computers and the Internet survive. But will that be as long as Samuel Pepys' diary has survived? I doubt it.