FIRST JOURNAL

1973. My first journal was one of those odd-sized composition books, thick cardboard covers with shapeless black and white cow spots I'd convinced myself that this was a serious writing apparatus, the kind that serious writers use whe they want to do some serious writing. It was, I discovered, a clumsy and unbecoming, almost embarrassing, instrument. The wide lines and unforgivably stiff binding seemed to repel mature thought, which was, I had surmised, what I was seeking. I had not written on such wide-ruled lines since elementary school, when my cursive was wooden and chunky and my thought was limited to exercises and formulaic sentences. Somehow, then, this cumbersome composition book seemed to require me to return to those awkward days, to write with some thick pencil clenched in my fist. The thoughts that I recorded in that book were amateurish and immature, the childlike ramblings of someone who is stuck in some early adolescent funk.

That journal was indestructible! In fact, if it was not detroyed by flames in our apartement fire five years later, it is surely still extent, intact yet smeary-paged, lodged in some landfill.

My first writings, at age 17, were limited to recording dreams, jotting down epiphanies, testing out what at the time seemed incredibly deep thoughts and musings about existence, or setting off on rants against some unidentifiable or unknowable "they" or "them." And awkward attempts at poems and prose poems.

I did not practice daily writing, but I wrote on an irregular basis often enough to fill the pages, sure enough. And while the contents were at times embarrassing, at times constricted or tortured, the intent was always to capture what I was thinking and feeling, trying to give all of that some intelligible sense of form. And I did practice writing independent of any school assignments. I was writing for the sake of writing, trying to formulate independent thought, which was not easy. I felt trapped by received forms and ideas, by others' words. But I did write. And on more than one occasion I read my writing aloud, to an audience, something I had never done before. I read to my friends in Schwartz's basement bar and in my apartment. I am sure that my friends felt tortured by these performances, these chest-beatings of ego, but they never let on--they said that they enjoyed the work, that it made them think, that they liked my descriptions. And that faint praise, no matter how disingenuous or forced, felt good. It was a reward for the anguish I felt in trying to write anything interesting or meaningful.


My journal gaave me a place to go, a place to stand, a place to try on language without anyone else's promptings. I could create a presence for myself, create clumsy and dense metaphors that hinted at different layers of what I was trying to say. I was writing to unlock thought. My journal was a presen\ce to explore at a time when I was otherwise wholly miissing a presence in the world. It was a time that I was desperate for meaninmg and yet I found little meaning anywhere in my surroundings. (I felt like Paul in the short story "Paul's Case," where one's world suddenly turns yellow and sallow and infertile, where the world has been transformed into some depressive dark hole, the flood waters swelling, and nothing will ever bring back that original sensation of light and promise.)

My journal gave me a chance to make a mark, to record my ideas and trace my travels, a reliquary to look back on and reflect on, a place to stake out as my own. The journal was a stable element in a world that seemed suddenly slippery, hostile, intransigent, purposeless, incoherent and incomprehensible. It was one of the very few and humble moments in my life where I could see a trace of life, a voice, where I could say I am here, I am here, and I am here...

Writing in that journal was a transformative process: it allowed a chance to practice and to enter what would be a long apprenticeship.