You are the story of my life
by Pedro Serrano
I opened the old diary at random. “I punched myself awake this morning.”
It was in 1997, I’d had a nightmare. This was a time when fighting for your life during a zombie apocalypse wasn’t something you trained for on a regular basis. “I have to wake up!” I thought.
My back against a wall, I come up with an idea. In my dream, as hard as I could I punched myself in the head. I opened my eyes to find that my right fist was nudging the side of my skull. Just six words and a forgotten memory rose to the surface.
More then a fascinating experience in time travel, a diary holds a memory static. Every time we remember an event we re-write it. Small mistakes turn into massive failures that can, overtime, overshadow what’s good about a life. But a diary can bring back the past vividly.
For me a diary has been a confidant, a guide, and a graveyard. Keeping a diary is also a discipline.
I used to be very inconsistent in recording my days. Then I read a book by Julia Cameron titled “The Artists Way: a spiritual path to higher creativity.” In it, she shared an exercise that she calls “morning pages.” In the morning take three sheets of 8½ x 11 paper, start at the top of page one and, for three pages, describe how and what you’re feeling at that moment. There is nothing to screw it up.
I would sit and write non-stop till I reached the bottom of page three. I’d put down whatever it was I saw, was thinking, or feeling. And what I read back were three pages of pure misery.
Searing depression was a battle I’d been losing since my adolescence. Now every morning I was dredging up visions of unworthiness from the bottom of a stagnant pool deep inside of me. For some reason this exercise didn’t seem worth practicing. Go figure.
Then, one morning, I began filling in my morning pages with a pencil. At the end of the day, I wrote over those same three pages using a pen. Then I erased my morning purges. What was left in ink were the positive experiences of my day, the false visions of myself buried under ink, their ghosts visible only as indentations from the pencil’s tip.
I moved this technique to notebooks which are now filled with accounts of daily events worthy of being grateful for. Eventually, the morning pages became more positive themselves. I gave up the pencil technique and my morning pages have become a source to draw on for my writing.
The Dream Diary was an idea from a song writer I interviewed named Robin Rene. She told me that she kept a blank book next to her bed so she could use images from her dreams in songs.
Every night we all dream, usually we don’t remember them. But when I gave up coffee, for tea I could remember my dreams more clearly. I also discovered they were more intense after eating some protein before bed. So for six weeks I’d awaken remembering many of my dreams. Unfortunately, most weren’t about zombies.
In one, I was walking down a street when an earthquake hit. A massive crack opened up in front of me and I fell into a 40 foot chasm. I was gashed up and bruised but able to start the steep climb out. Just a foot from the top I could find nothing to pull myself up with. Then a face appeared over the edge and a man reached down to help pull me up. As I took his hand, I felt shame for needing help. I have learned that some dreams are lies that you believe about yourself.
But there are other types of dreams.
I’m at a party. Expensive clothes, the sounds of conversation and ice cubes clinking in glasses. I’m speaking to a couple. Behind them is a glass wall with the view of a garden. Then I see a mountain lion standing with its paws up against the glass. I excuse myself and step out into the garden with a forest behind it. The lion walks towards me, and looks me in the eye.
“Not yet.” I say. “A few more years of hard work and then we’ll be free.” It turns and walks back into the forest.
Keeping a diary isn’t recommended as something that can enrich your life. But it has mine. So consider this an endorsement. Start tomorrow in whatever way feels right. If you can’t wait to start, a blank page left in the notebook from your weekend could be a good place to start. Have fun, share any tips and stay alert for any zombie attacks.
Pedro Serrano, a New Warrior, hosts a community affairs radio show from 1.00 to 2.00 PM on WRSU 88.7FM . “I’m a spoken word artist. Some of my spoken word can be found on youtube. And I’m writing a book about being an out Gay role model for punk rockers and skinheads.”
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
