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Go Forth & Bear Witness
Apr. 24th, 2025 09:26 amWhy do people keep diaries anyway?
I have no idea.
I know for me personally, chronicling is deeply ingrained. It feels like the one thing I was placed upon this planet to do. And it has always felt that way even when I was a child.
Exhibit A:
How many nine-year-olds do you know who annotate for the sake of posterity?
Exhibit B:
I was even younger when I wrote this on the flyleaf of a volume of an ancient moldering children's encyclopedia that I found in the House of Usher's basement.
Again, that preoccupation with Someone looking over my shoulder to whom these words would mean more than they did to me when I was writing them. It's the certain knowledge that they would mean more that's spooky.
I suppose one might say that these are extreme versions of the type of hypervigilance all sensitive, intelligent children exercise in response to mad, capricious parents.
I don't actually know.
But it feels more like functionality coding hard-wired into my DNA: Go forth, thou, and bear witness.
###
Not that there was much to bear witness to yesterday! It was a gorgeous, sunny day; I was happy. I Remunerated and then I tromped.
The trout lilies are in high bloom—
—and the bloodroot—
The magnolias, meanwhile, are on their last gasp:
I have no idea.
I know for me personally, chronicling is deeply ingrained. It feels like the one thing I was placed upon this planet to do. And it has always felt that way even when I was a child.
Exhibit A:
How many nine-year-olds do you know who annotate for the sake of posterity?
Exhibit B:
I was even younger when I wrote this on the flyleaf of a volume of an ancient moldering children's encyclopedia that I found in the House of Usher's basement.
Again, that preoccupation with Someone looking over my shoulder to whom these words would mean more than they did to me when I was writing them. It's the certain knowledge that they would mean more that's spooky.
I suppose one might say that these are extreme versions of the type of hypervigilance all sensitive, intelligent children exercise in response to mad, capricious parents.
I don't actually know.
But it feels more like functionality coding hard-wired into my DNA: Go forth, thou, and bear witness.
###
Not that there was much to bear witness to yesterday! It was a gorgeous, sunny day; I was happy. I Remunerated and then I tromped.
The trout lilies are in high bloom—
—and the bloodroot—
The magnolias, meanwhile, are on their last gasp:
