Living in Words

the Yukon diary of my great-grandfather
Addison Clark Dyer

I've written about this now and then on this site, and here we go: I'm writing about it again--with a bit of a different slant, I hope.

Yesterday, I printed out my journal for February 2020 (yes, I keep my journal on my computer, not in a little book that, by now, would be filled with scrawls that only a CIA code expert could decrypt--oh, is my handwriting getting BAD! Despite all those penmanship certificates I won back at Adams Elementary School from the Zaner-Bloser Co.!).

I had written journal entries in a very desultory fashion before January 1997, when I retired from public-school teaching. Very few. Very scattered. But one of the things I resolved that long-ago January was that I would be more ... regular ... about it.

But now I'm more than regular; I'm downright obsessive.

I keep the Word file open all day on my computer, adding to it throughout the day--and it's also now in the cloud (One Drive), so I can add things from my iPhone or iPad if I'm somewhere else.

By the way, I adopted this policy of keeping my journal "open" all day from William Godwin (1756-1836), the father of Mary, the Mary who would become Mary Shelley and would write ... you know. Godwin, I learned, kept his journal open all day on his desk and would add to it as things occurred. His is not really an expansive work (it’s more a record of what he did and read rather than of what he was thinking--thoughts appeared in his many books and essays).

So ... since January 1997 I've missed very few days, and the monthly printouts fill many three-ring binders that are all neatly stored ... HAH! All I know is they're here--somewhere. I'm sure I'll organize them, one of these days.

In the journal I record not only what Joyce and I have done that day--and what I've thought and felt--but I also paste into it the doggerel I've written, letters I've written (not so many of the latter anymore since I don't write letters regularly any longer).

And I have to say: That journal is a priceless resource for me. When did we go to Grand Manan Island? What did Joyce give me on my 64th birthday? Who was with us that night at the restaurant? Etc.

But the last few years it's become even more meaningful to me: As my time is visibly shortening, I'm realizing that those words are, in a sense, I--the only I that will remain when Mr Reaper knocks and insists on entry, then escorts me ... Elsewhere.

And so, a few years ago, I began writing, at the end of each month's pages, this: My words are all I have; you can find me among them.

Yes, perhaps a bit pretentious, but I'm still convinced the idea is sound--the idea that we can live on in our words. I know this is true from reading collections of letters and journals by professional writers who are no longer with us. Words, I've realized, are not just recordings; they are windows, as well--sometimes clear, sometimes not. But windows nonetheless.

I have the diary of my great-grandfather Addison Clark Dyer (1847-1906), a diary he kept during his trip to the Yukon in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush (1897-99). The diary is perfunctory and spare (it was no easy journey to the Far North in the late 19th century), but in these words--the only words of his that linger--I've felt his breath upon my face.