2:50 p.m. - January 16, 2003
If you don't like it, go away.
Went for a drive through the canyon to my secret spot and sat on the damp grass in the sun for an hour, watching the hawks and it was quiet and when it's quiet I do what I do best: Think unproductive thoughts. Reminded myself that this journal is another secret spot and I will write what I want, even if it is a thousand variations on been-there-wrote-about-that. The compulsion to write is not to record the goings and doings of my day but to narrate my story, to organize events and be able to step back and see the broader picture, the details fleshed before me and to put the pieces together and be content. I give myself permission to write about what happened when I was a kid over and over until I am not afraid to think the words or read them or say them, repeating them until I do not cringe and feel ashamed and this stab at reversing the hierarchy will be beneficial. I've declared my intent to examine the events of my childhood and then shrink away, overwhelmed by the emotions that refuse to be calm but seem to dissipate the less I think about them, but it's a sham. The less I think about them the more they are present and the more I try to avoid them, busying myself, taking on new projects, more things to do in an effort to say I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm going to write as much as I can and as often as I will, until I'm done. Ownership. I'm making this mine. I have to, I feel the need pressing on me, welling up inside like a boil.
