Look what I found...
An older journal. The first entry.

I was looking for a journal to take with me to Michigan this morning. Now that I've been blogging every day for almost a year, I need to write down some semblance of thought every day. I'll take a book with me to hold the entries that I can't make online. That way, I can scan what I don't post when I get home. I collect blank books. So I looked through the collection on my bookshelf. They have some symbolism of limitless potential- they can be anything, but only while they're still blank. So I leave most of them unwritten. There must be ten of them scattered around the house. Today, I found three books of poetry, two blank journals, two diaries started, never kept. One of the two is a remarkably beautiful cloth journal that I picked up at Circle of Hands during the Eugene Celebration last year. God... I can't believe that was almost a year ago. I had just moved out my my parents' house into my first rental at 24th and Kincaid. The year before, I had been in the dorms. Being in the dorms is a form of liberation, but not the real thing. Now I knew I would never live at home again, at least not for a long while or unless bad things happened. It was the weekend after 9-11. Justin had come down for the festival, which was under fire for being held so close to the "tragedy." They Might Be Giants had to cancel because there were no planes for them to fly to the West Coast. That friday, before the festivities started, there was a thunderstorm. On the drive down, Justin saw people on overpasses, lining the streets with candles. It rained on the candlelight vigil they held downtown. We went anyway; we were an hour too late. Saturday night when we went for some revelry, I saw the book for sale at Circle of Hands. I passed it by because of the price ($25) but it spoke to me. Later that night while we were watching fire dancers spinning wild to loud techno beats, I snuck back to the store and bought it, my hands greedy for its potential. I wrote four entries in it before I knew that it wasn't meant to be the thing I was making it. Only the first one still rings true. When I read it, I got goosebumps:

9-19-01
How on earth to begin? Things are changing... have changed, will change. But it seems as if, right now, the world has gone mad with change. American has again been surprised that it can still lose what innocence it has left. That it can be taken unawares, raped, laughed at. Amidst all this, I have finally left the nest, bruised and stunned in the same way. I am hurt and shocked by terrorism. I have been forced to re-evaluate my country, my lifestyle, my values. I must question my patriotism while still newly marveling at capitalism's cursed effect on the price of house-hold cleaners, kitchen goods, toilet paper and pet-care products. It's enough to make me reject society altogether!

I've mostly recovered from the slow, gripping sadness of the week previous, freed by the monotony or work and a Norman-Rockwellesque barrage of supportive American flags. I no longer cry myself to sleep in my head but I do light a candle nightly for those lost in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. Life goes on.

But to where? I'm no longer a fledgeling; I stand alone, finally pushed into being a part of my battered nation. Waiting in line at the grocery store, I am every woman; no longer tie to my man, my parents, my "home." I am one of many finding a place in a country I forgot was there. Maybe I never knew America was there at all. I am of a generation of innocents who can still find the time to celebrate during tragedy, to laugh in the face of danger and somewhat stupidly turn their backs on politics.

On September 11, 2001, I grew up. I decided not to think it was "cool" when the smoke cleared from the trade centers. And on the 15th, as I wastched a young firedancer spin to Trance, I knew I needed another journal to guide me in my dance, through my transformation. I wanted to BE her, to have my own elemental magic, to be a part of passionate innocence and of a rhythm that is something, finally, greater and more real than my own.

Thanks, BLOGGER, for guiding that dance!