Sorting Through the Past

I have very little storage space in my apartment, and a fair amount of it is consumed by a few large boxes filled with family pictures and writings and with journals I have kept since I was a small child. This afternoon I finally began the long process of reading through those journals and deciding their fates.

Today I made my way through an ancestor's account of his trip back to Germany in 1902. It had been translated from the German into English by someone of my mother's generation. I am unclear as to how this man is related to me, but he could be a cousin of my maternal grandfather's. Claus Kuehl primarily wrote of what he ate and which relatives he visited in which cities. His insights and observations are rare: Chicago's buildings are tall; occasionally, the girls on board ship danced a bit too wildly for the captain's tastes; and Americans are better-looking than the Germans he left behind. How fascinating if he would have described the grit and grime of Chicago, the way in which the girls' dancing was too wild, and in what ways the Americans had it over on the Germans. The only interior shot we're given is that he's frequently homesick. Other than that, Claus provides no record of his inner life during this once-in-a-lifetime, three-month journey from his farm in Iowa to the nation of his birth and back again.

I also read my mother's 1952-54 diary of her travels in Europe while serving as a serviceman's club director for Special Services. This had been lovingly typed by my cousin Mary, who also took other hand-written work by my mother and spent many long hours typing perhaps 200 pages. She sent the fruit of her labor in hard copy and electronically, so copies will always be available. Though my mother offers more local color than did Claus, insight into her emotional life is also sorely lacking--and this is precisely what I was hoping to uncover. I never knew what made my mother tick, but I did know that these two years in Europe were seemingly the only happy times of her life. I was hoping that her diaries would grant me access to the interior life she always kept under lock and key.

Not to be outdone by my relatives, I figured I had to look at my own musings as well. I selected a diary from 1984. What Claus and my mother lacked, I more than made up for in my missive. Page after page of my hand-wringing about my marriage until I nearly wanted to shout at my former self, "Oh, shut up! Just do something, will you!"

Definitely my notebook is heading for recycling. I have contacted a distant relative who is heavily into geneology. She may be interested in Claus's and my mother's writings, especially since Claus makes so many references to other relatives.

This is just the beginning of this project. Who knows, maybe somewhere in all these pages will be some real gems, something that can be reworked into a great short story. But much of what I'll read no doubt will end up in the recycling bin.

Just as our lives fade into obscurity and as our memories and the records of them fade, so too will they be recycled into other forms. Our bodies into food for trees and our diaries into paper that will save a tree. Unlike us, trees say nothing and make no fuss, but in the end, they get all the goodies of our silly dramas.