Hieroglyphs of a turbulent heart
Posted on | April 1, 2008 |
Every guy I have ever dated has been the same in one way: they have all been inclined to read my journals. Fools, all of them, for flipping through the blurry pages of my inconsistent heart.
One day I’m only able to see the sun. Everything is bright: my future, the mangos split into perfect segments on the table, the way my son laughs, the way words fall readily into place. Other days my heart plays wild gypsy music. I howl at the moon, lust after long gone loves, linger in the blue light of my laptop screen parsing stilted fragments and run-ons into barely sentences.
In college I remember a boyfriend flipping through the pages of a journal that I’d left tucked into a bag in his room. His jealously about the way I’d described my ex was palpable, his eyes were sparks, he couldn’t take the fact that I would write about anyone other than him with shards of longing, or affection, or anything other than contempt. He was actor. The kind of man who would turn anything into a passionate fight followed by passionate reconciliatory love making.
The fight about the journal was the most bitter. I wouldn’t back down, or say it wasn’t true, or do anything to soothe his wounded ego. And all I could say was, idiot. Why’d you read? My heart is ambiguous, turbulent, and true. Every day the world is a different hue.
This is the way I write here. Each post is a splattered blueprint of my everyday heart on the page, and you’ll get a wildly irregular and possibly skewed perspective. I want to sink into the moment, that’s why I write. I want to remember the way today a warm wind woke us up in the morning, and how it rained all day—leaving the rivers choked with snowmelt, slipping over their banks into the brown meadows of trampled grass. I want to remember the way I feel when we fight, or when I am abundant with joy, or when I am occupying the fragile thin edge of loneliness and longing that circles my life, that makes me hungry.
Today I am trying to get myself motivated to go for a run. Exercise is one of the keys, often missing, that makes my life feel whole. Yesterday I lay in the sun outdoors for hours, under the trees on the newly drying grass, just inches away from melting snow. My skin was singing with sun. I felt a smile blooming somewhere deep inside my solar plexus. Everyday is different.
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18 Responses to “Hieroglyphs of a turbulent heart”
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April 1st, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
i just loved this post.
my mother always used to read my journals growing up.
it still upsets me today.
not because she read them,
but because she didn’t read them with an open heart.
and realize i was just trying to figure myself out.
i’m still writing today,
and still trying to figure myself out.
she now reads my blog,
but she is much more open to what i write,
and i am so glad.
:o)
April 1st, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
true, true, true. everyday is different and unique and will never be repeated.
April 1st, 2008 @ 11:02 pm
isn’t that the truth, the ups and downs and turn a rounds are always there. The irregularity is the constant.
April 2nd, 2008 @ 1:26 am
Absolutely beautiful. And true, true, true!!
April 2nd, 2008 @ 4:00 am
I often feel like journaling is the one place where it’s OK to be inconsistent and irrational and true to each non-sequitur moment. I’ve never let anyone read my journals though… just selected entries for my hubby, and even then, I’m cringing while he reads my uncensored brain. I find it so inspiring that you let us in on your everyday world!
April 2nd, 2008 @ 7:58 am
So true. And that is why I love you and your blog - because everyday you are honest about what you feel - never covering up the reality with sugar. Makes me feel normal.
April 2nd, 2008 @ 8:57 am
i adore you for this. it is what i feel in my heart as well. thank you.
April 2nd, 2008 @ 8:59 am
i can so relate to this - the diary writing (and unauthorised reading); the ebbing and flowing; the turbulent heart. Lovely post
April 2nd, 2008 @ 11:07 am
I echo what everyone else has already voiced in their comments, and especially what you have written. You hit it right on the head! My boyfriend, which is too light a term for what our relationship is, can be jealous and insecure when it comes to anyone from my past. I wish I had the strength you had to fight back, but maybe now I can borrow your sentiments to attempt to explain my different daily moods, selves, colors of the heart, mind and soul.
April 2nd, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
So I have been reading & lurking since Ali Edwards mentioned you on her blog. Can I just tell you that I love this post. I love that you write this way - honestly, about each moment, every feeling, good & bad. That you take time to describe your passions, without apology. It gives me courage to write this way, maybe not on my blog - it’s for family & grandparents mostly, but in my private journals. That it’s OK to acknowledge, examine, even embrace the longing, serious, discontented moments of marriage, motherhood and life; that it doesn’t detract from the joyful ones to do so. Sorry to ramble, just, thank you.
April 2nd, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
Dr. Seuss says it well in ‘My Many Colored Days’ which I’m sure is already on Bean’s bookshelf
April 2nd, 2008 @ 9:57 pm
i love your writing…
April 3rd, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
My mother found my diary when I was eight. She scolded me for writing “too many negative things about your father.” I knew she read it subsequently after that, checking in. I know I am curious, this is why I come and read others’ blogs. But I can’t stifle the fury I had at her nosiness.
My own husband is trustworthy though. I could (and have) left my journal out in plain sight. He doesn’t read my blog either. He shrugs and says those things belong to me. I appreciate it, though I wonder if I’m just not interesting enough for him to sneak a peak.
April 3rd, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
This post made me giggle. Maybe because we both have a flair for the dramatics. Blogs are funny creatures too. What could be a fleeting thought becomes larger than life on the computer screen. Bravo to you for keeping your integrity intact. I always find pause in your thoughts however random or true to life they may be.
Hugs,
a.
April 3rd, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
I suspect the only man who can hold you will be the one who loves not just you, but — equally (or even more so (a problem, no?) — that wild place which bore you: a place he can never enter but to which you are compelled to peripatetically return. That, I further suspect, is a chief reason why running is so therapeutic for you, as it presents the imminent possibility of arrival.
April 4th, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
My husband and I have been married almost 18 years, half our lives. A few years ago while we were packing our clearing out in preparation for our move to the country, he ran across an old poetry journal from high school. It was where I’d written favorite poems and some of my own–some about him–my senior year. I jumped up to grab it, and, seeing my urgency to snatch it away, he opened and started skimming through it. I begged him not to. We share everything–almost–and he must have thought I was kidding and that there would be some journal entry about him or another boy hidden in there for him to tease me about. Then he started reading one of my poems out loud. There was no malice in the act. He seemed to really like the poem. But it was more than I could bear. I fell on the floor, sobbing loudly, and begging to have the journal back. He handed it back with a heartfelt apology attached. Poor man. He still has no clue why it upset me. He is not a private person. And I have no logical reason for this moment either. The feelings expressed in that poem are no secret to him. Sometimes it is easier to speak plainly and lay my soul bare for a stranger than for the person who matters most to me in this world.
You write beautifully. I’ll be back for more.
April 7th, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
Feels like forever since I’ve left a comment - just to say that yes, I also feel that I write to remember, the feeling and thoughts and just the way the light falls - and how brave you are to share your journals with others! I never really journalled for any length of time until I had my blog, but I would not like people to read whatever I wrote, always so earnest and yet afraid to write it down, sometimes, to make it permanent -
April 7th, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Ahh…thank you for your honesty! It takes courage.