I posted the piece on the Red Woman yesterday. I realize that though I’ve talked about her in my blog, I’ve never told the whole story. I quote from my journal entry, in 1989, about her first appearance. Setting it out as a blog piece, I see that there’s huge difference between how I wrote then, and how I write now. That passage now seems to me a little artificial, somewhat self-consciously literary. I was feeling ecstatic, that’s true, and trying to express it on the page. There are parts like this in my earliest journal from my teenage years. I look back at my 47-year-old self and my 17-year-old self and feel a lot of affection.
I’ve wondered about the time I said to my then husband, “If I published a book, it would prove that I deserve to live despite the fact that my parents were disappointed in me,” and then all the motivation for writing my journal fell out of my life. I stopped typing up my journals. I thought I might stop writing altogether, but I didn’t, it was too much a part of my life. Now I see it as a spiritual practice. I’ve wondered if my style of writing changed, and this seems to be an example. I’m glad to see how I’ve grown, as expressed in my writing, from then to now.