I’ve always liked calendars. Measuring out the days, keeping track of things, gives you a sense of where you’ve been and where you’re going – even if where you’ve been is “Flu shot” and where you’re going is “Take sofa to dump.” I was never good at keeping a diary, which might seem odd for a writer until you consider many writers’ need for a sense of an audience. It’s lonely enough pounding away at the keyboard (or just sitting there chewing your fingernails in despair). When I would try to write only to myself, my output tended to get all depressed and weird. No Anne Frank moments for me, but even she made up a person to write to, her invisible friend Kitty.

Instead, I document my life in a series of calendars and datebooks. By now, I’ve accumulated a long shelf of them, dating back decades. Browsing through them instantly transports me, sometimes gleefully, other times with a decided sense of foreboding, into the life I’ve lived and the person I’ve been.

Pulling out the 1976 datebook, I’m alarmed at how much I wrote down. I seem to have documented every TV show watched, all my work hours and every outfit I wore there, every single person I talked to or ate lunch with. November 22: “Call Firestone & Chrysler. Work 10-6. Buy batteries, Underalls. Gail called. Blue pants, yellow blouse. 8:00 (12) Wolf Trap – Ragtime.” At this time, I was living at home after grad school, working but bored out of my skull, and, according to a notation at the top of the page, my dad was in the hospital following a heart attack. No wonder I was watching so much TV and being so obsessive. (Underalls? They were those nifty panties and stockings all in one.)
The following year I got married, and things changed, to put it mildly. I began to see how bad things were getting (something many women in violent relationships just can’t admit) when I started keeping track. It’s not like I wrote anything obvious in these pages, like “C. threw me against the wall.” What I did was place a careful underline under the date, something I figured he wouldn’t notice. By 1983, the really bad stuff was taking place at least once a week. There’s a double underline on November 12, the day after my husband’s birthday, plus the word “migraine.” Well, no wonder. I could not have kept a diary about all this. It was hard enough to begin writing honest letters to my friends.

Unlike me, my mom did keep a diary. Sure, she kept calendars that were as public as the kitchen bulletin board on which they hung, but her most private, passionate thoughts went between two covers. One day when I was unpacking my books from college, she began digging through the treasures in her cedar chest and read aloud – selectively – to me. The passage I remember best is this one, from her days in junior high: “I’m so NERVOUS!” We laughed, but I never forgot this insight into our shared anxiety. After a few more choice readings, she slammed the book shut and instructed me, “When I die, burn these.”

I confess, I did not. Nor did I burn the journals she began keeping much later in life, a series of plain spiral notebooks that contained mainly notes on what she did (e.g. cleaned the living room), whom she saw (my cousin Michael, who visited frequently to take her shopping and drink her whiskey), and how she felt (arthritis acting up). I did not sit down to read them cover to cover, not yet, anyway. For one thing, her handwriting is terrible, largely because of her arthritis. For another, when I went looking for a couple of specific dates, I ended up feeling guilt stricken.

What did I look for? First, her wedding day. I was dismayed to find she was extremely irritated with my father much of that day. Evidently he was nearly late to his own nuptials. It all turned out well in the end, although I don’t think I should have read her report. The second date I went looking for was the day my father died. She wrote, “It happened,” and then several sentences about someone named Marie, and how “we actually laughed.” I wasn’t shocked about the laughter; that happens in the midst of grief. What shocked me more was that I wasn’t mentioned. And, yeah, I’m embarrassed that I found that troubling. This was her day, not mine. When I finally remembered who Marie was – a neighbor with young children who often visited and helped my mom out – I was more grateful than jealous.

There’s another thing I inherited from my parents that is much more fun and much less of a minefield. It’s a calendar from 1957, when I was just entering school. The pictures for each month are priceless depictions of post-WWII life, wholesome kids and perfect parents in comical situations like a kite caught on an antenna. From this I learn that I had chicken pox in 1956, and my PTA picture was taken on 1/16/57. Nothing earthshaking, but it means the world to me to see my father’s name in my mom’s handwriting (“Harold polio shot”), or notes for our family reunion at Maquoketa Caves (“cake, cold drinks, pot. chips, meat, table cloth”).

I saved that old calendar for the pictures, but I treasure it for the words. These days I don’t write down what I wear to work, but I do try to record the movies we go to, not that I expect to remember “Bottle Shock” looking back on that title when I’m ninety. I put down the names of friends we eat dinner with, and hope I’ll remember who they were and what their friendship meant to us. Along with doctor appointments and other obligations I don’t want to forget, I write down the names of restaurants we eat at and plays we atttend. Ever since I forgot the name of that winery I visited in 1982, I’m being more careful about trusting that stuff to memory. “Try to remember,” the old song goes. It’s a lot easier when you write it down.

Pam Kress-Dunn
pam2617@yahoo.com