Journals, journals... Everywhere there are Journals! And Finding Arleen Polite Part 2

I have been an avid diary and journal writer as long as I can remember. 

  

My maternal Grandmother Bernice( from where I get my middle B. name ) purchased for me a small brown leather diary complete with its own little key, and Thanks to my Mom, who (unfortunately snooped into it back in the day.. without my knowing it) sent it out to me when I was still living and working at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadero, California along with my tiny green 1st grade Catholic School Sweater, a teenage beaded Lion purse, a cookbook she had compiled for me of ALL of her recipes, and a small black Japanese music box with abalone! inlay that my Dad had brought back to me as a child on one of his many trips "out of town"  as a carpenter and general contractor.

All of those items , except for the small brown diary were left behind when I was abruptly forced by Hostelling International Golden Gate council and three very misogynous men , out of a job that I loved and a place where I had always wanted to work ...back in 2009.

I picture those other items floating around in the tidepools and surf surrounding this magical spot where I was lucky to have lived for nearly three years during which in 2007 I created this blog that is MY journal /book online, that has become also my chronicle of life back and forth, up and down from here to there and back again to the present.

So ,  I have, here in Florida and up in storage in Ohio, stacks and stacks of hard bound journals of every color and love looking back in then from time to time to put my life into perspective. 

My little garden journal from my four 4month long stint
Living with Artist Arleen Polite 
May She Rest In Peace

Here in our little pandemic refuge I am still up for some of the night . (See previous blogging regarding Owlgirl Rhythms and Finding Arleen Polite) I went looking for exactly what I was doing when Arleen passed on back in 2020, a few months following the murder of George Floyd. 

I had finally connected with Arleen's little Brother,  Hallbrook (and conservator of her amazing collection of woodcut originals and prints) the night before last.  In what was an hour of grace in conversation ...I found out the details of her passing on as well as the fact that she had ben cremated back in Austin after all and not buried here in Palatka as I had previously thought. 

So back then in 2020 I had been alone in this trailer for the first time since taking on the care of my disabled Father back in 2012 and was having, along with Mollie my dog and Verde my newish cat...my own personal ART camp, writing copiously into this old -school paper bound journal

This is what I had written the night before Arleen passed onto the Great Beyond :

"Dreams about being in a backyard somewhere with Dad.  I Was out after dark because I had heard a flute playing from a house behind us. I went to the house, where they were having a "music/food" gathering like  ones I had known in California.

One woman is talking to me, telling me that she remembered me from..... When I had made something. I told her it wasn't me .. she must be remembering someone else, and also I Had the feeling she had met me right after Mom died.

Later in the dream, I am traveling on river in these Utah-like" slot canyons" I was calling them , looked just like ones I had seen in Zion.

I was being helped out of this river by another adventure-type woman who had climbing ropes, but I somehow easily flipped myself up and over.. this fence and onto the banks.

In real life I crave both musicians and outdoor adventure types, to be back in my life again.

Last night Mollie went crazy barking at the back door again so I went out onto the back ramp calling for Verde again.. a large Barred Owl immediately called out. I am so  happy to hear one here finally again.

For the first four years here back with Dad, there was a family of 5 of them that would call back to me and they have been missing for a few years and Verde was okay and I told her to ho back to her hiding place. This morning after after another strong storm- the air is clean and the stars are incredible".

Back here in 2022 in the present where the "power  they say resides" .. I am working on 3 simultaneous journals.; A beautiful leatherbound art/nature/daily journal  given to me as a gift last fall? By my cousin Dawn for recording my dreams that are starting to come back and the small store bought travel journal like the ones I have had in the past, doing my all time favorite past-time of cafe writing, ( but as I am STILL in covid at home quarantine) it has become my little journal all about Finding Arleen Polite. 

Up in my storage unit in Ohio, there is a box full of journals written in the early part of my life and I hope that if i do not survive this multifaceted pandemic, someone will rescue them on my behalf. Its now the evening here and writing all of this has drained my vital energy needed to get it out... Or as Wayne Dyer once said..." Don't die with your music still in you".