My writing in the last couple of weeks has been made up mostly of journaling. That has inspired me to revisit a piece I wrote about how important I think journal writing is and share it with you. The Power of Journaling A friend gave me a little leather (or faux leather) bound five-year diary complete with tiny lock and key when I was in high school. And for a while I wrote in the teeniest script about typical teen-age angst especially about my first crush who gave me my first cigarette and first French kiss and then dumped me for a girl he met at summer camp. I think my parents must have thrown that diary out when they sold our house and moved to California because I never saw it again after I went away to college. I took up journaling again during my thirties while my husband and our two sons and I lived for nineteen months on a remote island in the South Pacific. I felt so isolated on this tiny island that the best I could do was write long rants every morning before the … [Read more...]
Leaving an island paradise
Blog Editor, Linda Hoye, recently asked Story Circle Network's One Woman's Day contributors to consider a place they hold dear and to write about a special day they spent there or, perhaps the day they left. I accepted the challenge and wrote about the bittersweet leaving of our family's home in the South Pacific. Here's my story, recently published in the Story Circle Network's March Journal: Leaving An Island Paradise From January 1977 to September 1978 I lived with my family on an island in the South Pacific Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. The island is a military base, and my husband Bob managed a military-funded program there. We had a slow and easy life on the island, filled with all kinds of beach and water activities. When we arrived our sons Paul was five and Ben was two and a half. When we left Paul was seven and Ben four. Ben was glad to leave; Paul could have stayed forever. However, when we first stepped off the plane (a military carrier with no … [Read more...]
My favorite uncle
In July 1949, my favorite Uncle Phil was killed in a plane crash in the Burbank California mountains. He was returning home to Los Angeles from Chicago where he attended a furniture and textile show and visited with family. I wrote the story below from my memory of the day we found out about the crash and that he was not one of the fourteen survivors. I couldn't let the month of July go by without a mention of him. Uncle Phil still has a huge place in my heart. "I Didn't Have Time to Worry" I was nine during the summer of 1949. My baby sister was a month old, and my brother was away at camp. I spent those long, lazy days being the big sister. I either helped my mom take care of the baby, swam in Lake Michigan a block away from our apartment in Chicago, or I was curled up with my nose in a book. I was the chubby girl with short, dark curly hair. My eyes were hazel and my skin had a deep summertime tan. And, I was already a romantic, hopelessly in love with my Uncle Phil, one of … [Read more...]
Life in the South Pacific
Our family lived in the South Pacific on a military base called Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands from January 1977 until September 1978. Paul was five and Ben two and a half when we arrived. Paul absolutely loved it there while Ben hardly has any memory of it. Paul attended Kindergarten and first grade on the island. Ben couldn't attend the nursery school until he turned three so I took him to a baby sitter for an hour or so every day until he was old enough to go to school. He had some little friends to play with, and I learned how to hit a tennis ball. Bob managed a software test program, and although I never had a paying job there, I did some volunteer activities. However, I used to get up early every morning and write. In fact, my Kwaj journal entries turned into an article that was published in our company magazine after our return. We also traveled into Micronesia twice to Ponape, Yap, Palau and Guam, and we stayed in Hawaii on the way there and on the way home. You can … [Read more...]
