Tag: Writing

I’ve been reading journals written while I was traveling in Europe during the Fall of 1974. I wasn’t very good at journaling 50 years ago.

“An Italian whose uncle is a cardinal took me to the Vatican to get me a ticket to the papal audience tomorrow,” I wrote. Today, I would rewrite this sentence in different ways: reduce word count, clarify, simplify. I would add more detail and maybe another descriptive sentence.

I’d like to read about that general audience with Pope Paul VI today. I have to rely on my faulty, septuagenarian memory and a couple of photographs to get me through revisiting that time. My journal is lacking if my memory is not.

For some reason or in these events and environments I dream very much, dreams which I have never had so many of before ever. My archeologist friend from Australia says that they are the result of being in strange surroundings and my body trying to cope. If what he says be true then the distinction between my mind and body is even more subtle than I had imagined.

Personal Journal, Winston Churchill Gardens, Salisbury, England Aug. 27, 1974.

Good God! what awful writing! The punctuation! I hope I am better than that now.

I made a special trip to Ravenna to see the Byzantine mosaics I studied in art history class at university. I had been practicing my Italian for weeks to prepare for this less traveled destination. The mosaics did not disappoint. However, my journal did. The entries in Ravenna were mostly about the logistics of closing down my tour and heading back to Iowa. Feeling like Henry David Thoreau, I enumerated my expenses in the journal instead of observations about the ancient artwork. I bought a book, Ravenna: An Art City by Giuseppe Bovini, to aid memory in later years.

I began journaling after graduation from university. My first book of journals was stolen when I stayed at a youth hostel in Boulogne, France after crossing the English Channel. The thief swiped my whole backpack! All I had left was a small blue shoulder bag Grandmother made for me that contained my passport, American Express traveler’s checks, my camera, and a few other necessities. I had to spend part of the $2,000 I brought with me replacing the bag and buying clothing: an unwelcome expense.

I continue to journal. In 2007 I began using Moleskine plain notebooks, although I also use up whatever notebooks are on hand. Moleskine products are getting a bit expensive. While designed in Milan, Italy, they are manufactured in China. The margin on these popular notebooks must be substantial. Their future is uncertain when I have a dozen or so spiral notebooks, bought for a dime each, in inventory and a need to cut expenses.

The 1974 journal is useful in recalling things. In the first draft of this section of my autobiography, I completely forgot about the papal audience. In addition to the journal, I have enough artifacts collected on the trip to remember what happened.

I possess living memory of those places. If the poorly crafted journals do anything in 2023, they prompt those memories, however imperfectly. I was a different person in 1974. Alone in Europe, I did what I could to express what I was experiencing. Without a steady travel companion for conversation, I wrote in my journal. We do the best we can.

I am thankful to have made that trip. I am thankful to be living with the ability to remember it.

Tours, France, Sept. 7, 1974 For the sake of record I’ll mention that in Boulogne all my things were stolen and since then I spent $300 replacing them and another $185 on a Student Rail Pass. Also for the record I’ve been to Paris by hitchhiking in a Renault van a fellow bought for 800 francs and fixed up himself who was also going to the Fête de l’Humanité where the Kinks and Leonard Cohen were supposed to play. Got picked up with a Canadian from Ontario with whom I stayed in Paris, mostly at Hotel Excelsior #37 15 francs a night. Four nights in all in Paris. The large Raft of Medusa, Napoleon Coronation, Ingres all hold much attention (although the Oath of Horatii still didn’t seem that great).

Tours, France, Sept. 8, 1974 Gare à Bordeaux were much more impressive in person than the slides I saw in classes. A tad more appreciation of artistic value. Louvre for the most part was ostentatious and gaudy but the treasures Mycienne et Minoanne were well worth the visit. Also DaVinci’s Mona Lisa was very good as well. It’s fame well deserved. The show of Joan Miró was very complete and what impressed most were the ceramics and weaving. The paintings lacked something in such great numbers, better just a few to contemplate rather than such overdose. Cézanne was his normal boring self, only one or two paintings of interest.

But by far the most consuming artwork in Paris is the Nymphaes of Claude Monet. These truly change my opinion to the better. Formerly I despised Monet’s haystacks and cathedrals but when seen correctly, as preparatory to his monumental Nymphaes and also Water Lillies in New York, they are well worth Monet’s time although the preparatories are are not really worth much of our time.

Walking down Champs-Élysées was something to dig with overstuffed tourists, young people, Hare Krishna and all. Dug that scene several times. In vain searched for nite time W.C. at Arc de Triomphe. Oh well. Also Africans peddling wares all over Montmartre was very impressive and that seems to be the place where the tourist should go to avoid crowds. The Latin Quarter, although good books, was too crowded.

Shopped TATI for many low-priced goods. With a very heavy new bag full of new goods, I left Paris by train on Sept. 7, yesterday.

Versailles was very big with 75-100 buses full of tourists there. The place was so crowded that at times I had to keep my guitar over my head. It is fitting that decadents wander like that through that gaudy, poor taste palace.

Next I stopped at Chartres Cathedral where I heard Mass. Very, very impressive place, especially the window to the right as you walk in. The Catholic service seems very strange among all the flash bulbs and whispering tourists, but the cathedral is very good. What else can you say?

Spent last night in Tours youth hostel where I was interrupted while writing by two English students, one Manchester and one Cambridge. They were traveling to beaches down south for one week before school starts. Received a gift from two Japan travelers of some folk craft sandals. He pointed out in his dictionary.

Am on a fast train to Bordeaux where I will station myself for a few days and look at the countryside of Toulouse, Lourdes, etc. Like also to visit the Lascaux caves, but I can’t remember where they are found. Am madly running to Spain and Portugal where clothes will be cheaper to buy.

~ Journal entries, Sept. 7-8, 1974

The first two weeks of the year were spent organizing for writing. The process is to locate and engage with source material, then methodically go through it. Once sorted, I decide whether it serves my current writing. If it is for the autobiography, it goes into the outline for placement and the writing. I spent the last couple of days with my postcard collection.

Time with the collection was enjoyable. My spouse is visiting her sister for a few days, so I could spread out and work in spells. I savor the remembrances evoked by these mass-produced works of art. I stuck a postcard Father sent me in 1962 on my bulletin board.

Easily half of the cards can be given away or shredded for garden compost. I put those in a separate box. Many were purchased at auctions and thrift stores. I bought some in a fit of collection fever. Not many of them have any intrinsic value beyond my interest.

A stack was postcards sent to me. Those have a place in my working binders where they will be sorted by date. I picked a couple out to pin on bulletin boards. Some went into related books, and most of what remains will get tucked away until the next round of use. When there are hundreds, it is hard to pick a couple for varied uses.

I favor sending friends note cards in envelopes these days. I have a roll of forever postcard stamps, yet I’d rather keep most messages private. It is a sign of the times that I no longer send or receive many postcards. The ones I set aside from the collection should yield some decent daily drafts.

I read the entire double-spaced, 336-page manuscript. While this took a while, it was essential to understanding where I am in the narrative. I’m ready to proceed with a daily writing goal and get started. There are still a couple of months of winter remaining.