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Published on 08/10/1998 All articles from this issue

The end of summer and a whole new world

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By Charlotte K. Jarmy

Reflections

Why do I still become tense when I see "Back-to-school" sales? Some tensions stick around longer than necessary. Returning to supervising at Stanford means pleasure, new challenges and intellectual stimulation. Yet I still have that old reaction to the memory of my intense involvement with teenagers, who today must also regret leaving behind the lazy days of summer.

Recording my experiences began with travel to Europe early in my vacations from teaching. The first trip covered six countries in three weeks, making for great material to write about. Every night I poured out my reactions to the wonders we experienced, along with funny anecdotes about our fellow travelers. When I asked my husband if he'd like to hear what I wrote, he said, "What for? I'm right here with you." That knocked the wind out of my literary ego. I discovered that I really liked to write for an audience.

Yet journals supposedly play a role as the silent friend to whom I can unburden my soul. I wrote, "Charlotte Giventer's Memories of her Sweet Sixteen Party. It was a surprise party given to me by my darling mother. I wore a red organdy dress and pinned the enclosed corsage at the shoulders." I gushed on about my birthday cake and about the two boys who crashed the party to dance with me in the hallway. I said, "My friends said the dress made me look slimmer." Some things never change.

These days we teach journal writing at the high school level to increase the flow of words and ideas without the usual pressure of critical assessment of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Some students are amazingly open about the pains of adolescence and pour out tales of broken homes, messed up friendships and turbulent inner emotions. It is understood that the student's revelations are strictly between the writer and the reader. Many friendships bloom because of that trust.

Literary works often use the form of the journal, which imparts a feeling of intimacy between the reader and the author. "Falling Through Space," the journals of Ellen Gilchrist, allows us to participate in a young girl's life as she reveals it from the 1940s to mid-1985. She starts, "This is my home. This is where I was born. This is the bayou that runs in my dreams ... This is where I believed that if I was vain and looked too long into the water I would turn into a flower."

Later as a woman, she says, "I am sick of being a writer ... I am sick of answering questions and signing my name and being loved by strangers." Those words are very foreign to me. All of my writing is meant to be read by friends and strangers.

Well, not all. I, too, have several books of personal writing full of my anxieties during the past 10 years when I lived as a single woman, my life intertwined with the lives of the new people I had met, worrying so much, remembering years past and wondering what the future would bring.

The future came to me in December 1993 with my first written words about a San Francisco man who called to ask me for a second date. In a few months I wrote, "a sweet, funny new boyfriend, Howard."

A new life began and continues today. Amazing to us both, but there it was, captured for all time in my own handwriting.

Summer may be about over, but I am counting on the warmth of the past few years to carry us into a new season. New seasons often have their share of worries and frustrations, but I look forward to sharing my reflections on life with you.

My private journals will remain tucked away with the artifacts of the past.