Since high school I've kept journals. Every now and then I exhume one or two in hopes of finding a lost or rare gem, but mostly my journals are tombs for what should remain buried. Sometimes they are good for a laugh. I've written some unintentional howlers in my time and maybe I'll share a few at some point. Today I was going to the library and picked up a journal to write in while I was there. After looking through bookstacks for an hour, I sat down and looked in the journal. I had an entry in there from my first month of teaching. I liked it enough to share here, even though at points it's probably too dramatic. But if you can't revel in the drama of your own life in your own journal, where can you? Well, online, I guess...

9/3
What a month. Overwhelming is an understatement. Nothing is easy, but most of it, if not all feels right. This is the surrender, the practice, the giving back. To truly get the deepest feelings, there must be this giving and this going into the world. This is more difficult, but ultimately, more important work. Life is not about ease. True, the creative life is something that I long for, yet live everyday. Through my teaching--its rough beginning--I create everyday. I do see the difference, though, the feeling of reading an essay or novel versus writing a melody or beginning a poem. It is so difficult, but at the same time, it is this prison that frees me.