I sometimes forget, when I’m writing, and I’m sure people sometimes forget, when they’re reading, that this space is, to all intents and purposes, my diary.* It’s not a particularly good diary. It certainly isn’t all inclusive. In fact, I keep rather a lot of secrets from my diary. I keep secrets and fail to name names and point fingers because I do realise that I am writing to and publishing on the internet. Things can get hellishly awkward when too many people read your diary. Well, I presume they could. It doesn’t really seem to be a problem for me.
Here’s the thing about diaries, and I’ve read a few – both real and fictional, and they’re really always fictional – they are temporary possible realities distorted through a diarist’s emotional state, psychosis, neurosis, bender status, tiredness level, and, oh, about a million other petty little irritations of life. They flex reality to such a degree that they make history look stable and that, my friends, takes some doing. Or, at least, it does to me. I tend to perceive the world and shattered and oddly bound. I’m not even sure it was shattered. Perhaps it was fragmented to begin with and we just keep tying bits together to create a sort of cohesion that we’ve noticed is lacking and that makes us feel very uncomfortable. Ah, whatever. I was talking about diaries.
How seriously, I wonder, can you take a diary? I can and I do, I can’t and I don’t. The answer is as simple as that. How seriously do I take this diary? Sometimes very and sometimes not. I write when my mind is full, I write to get things out, I write when I need to do or say something even if I don’t actually know what. Sometimes I just write. Sometimes things wriggle out and wiggle away when I think I’m writing about something else, when I’m talking about the other and not this. In the end, it’s what makes sense to me, what I get out of it that is the point. All else is bagatelle. In fact, sometimes so am I.
It’s strange how this has devolved over the years and become a world of self-obsession. I suppose it reflects my outlook and my reality. Not so much a kitchen sink drama as a kitchen table one. I am embarrassed that my world has shrunk and that I am so dull and insular. It is ironic that my mind and body are in sync – both have crap that shouldn’t be there and that needs scraping out. Both leave me feeling weak and exhausted and somehow removed. No ever fixed marks here, apparently. Mind you, I was never comfortable with eternity anyway. Not nearly transient enough for my small mind.
* Yes, I did just try to see if I could write a sentence with lots of commas that made sense. I think I sort of succeeded.**
** What, you thought this note would be something about a diary and not some sort of commentary on my sentence making skills? Silly, very silly.
4 comments:
Stuff and nonsense, woman. 'Insular' my foot! Anyway who enjoys a weekend trip out of a beer barrel and into the depths of an iced coffee is completely outsular. Excellent sentiments on diaries. Let's make a list of fictional diaries, what fun! Stunning bit of phrasing, 'all else is bagatelle'. And was that a sonnet reference, 'love is an ever-fixed mark'? To a marriage of true minds admit no impediment? Other than a few self-imposed impediments like mildly peanut-butter thick self-criticism (you'd have made a fabulous Red Guard) I see plenty of sonnet material in every fourteen lines you write.
Nails the Sonnet Sequence. Now that does have a nice ring to it.
This is my diary. Here's what I've got to say:
Life is an unimportant bagatelle.
Iced coffee, beer are to be drunk today.
Sometimes I do not feel very well.
I often get distracted. Look, a cat!
Who cares if things do not make any sense?
Plus, I once dropped a salmon in my flat.
Would anyone but fish try take offence?
This is my diary. And this is a fiction.
Sometimes I'm cryptic and mysterious.
Sometimes I may decide to talk of diction.
Sometimes I may not be so serious.
And if it has a bit of self-obsession,
Then jolly good. That is a good profession.
Oh indeed a diary/blog should be full of lies and falsities. It's one of the best places for them. A sprinkling of truth just to bring out the flavour, or a great dollop of it if it is particularly appealing.
The "dull and insular" do not write blogs, and certainly do not eat vegemite on toast. A choice of such gastronomic profundity is inspired.
Mitzi, most weekends are actually spent lazing on the couch. Sadly, I really look forward to doing it.
I'm not sure about the sonneting - poetry is not my thing. How fortunate that Tim exists and is clearly rather bored.
Tim, you are very funny and sometimes very sweet. Also, you remember some bizarre stuff.
Dan, yes, well, tea and vegemite toast are something of an illness/hangover cure. Vitamins B are wonderful for the unwell and for the perniciously anaemic. I'm all for half truths. Most things are only about half right anyway.
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