My Act This Easter

Like a protagonist in a Paul Auster novel I, with the help of S. and E2, started tearing up the contents of one box of diaries (volumes dated 1996 - 2011). As the pages flew by I caught glimpses of the places I'd been to, the stories I wrote, the people I met, the things I bought, the premieres and gallery openings I attended, the workshops I led, sketches, ideas for novels and plays, and my innermost thoughts. It was an act of catharsis.

The idea to do this became firm in my mind when, after my daughter-in-law Ivy's funeral in July, I looked at the tombstones in the cemetery and realized that all of those people who passed away have nothing but their names, their dates of birth, and their dates of death to be remembered by. Who was I, then, I asked myself, to hope to be remembered more than they, and what right had I to even try?

In a way I am glad that I won't leave any of those diaries behind for other people to read after I'm gone. As it is I already caught E2 absorbed in reading passages and using an un-torn page to wrap one of the items I gave him, and I didn't like the feeling!