for Thierry

For years, ever since I was in high school, I have kept a journal. Most of the time I wrote every day. I still have all of these journals. I try always to find some kind of interesting book to write in, to signify the importance of writing for myself. The writing is not only therapeutic. It becomes my personal history. Going back to read past journals, something I do from time to time, is illuminating. Sometimes I am embarassed for what I wrote. But I never want to change it. It is my own recherche de temps perdu.

Then in the last few years, I lost my good habit. I would write from time to time; scattered thoughts, recording events, but the frequency, or lack of it, frustrates me now, because chunks of the past are unaccounted for. I have a very good memory for some things, and yet the absence of detail, so many missing and important days, creates a sense of time moving in leaps rather than in a record of my evolution. And I wish I had written so diligently as I used to. For I have evolved; we all do, and while we might have hindsight to guide us to understand our path, it is sad that experiences vanish from consciousness.

Then, in December, Thierry inspired Bao to start a blog. It was something I had thought of doing ever since I heard of it, but was not sure how to, and besides, with my own website to keep up (professional use, though, not personal) I did not ever start one. Then Bao sent me a message and directed me to his blog. While reading Bao's early entries sent me into a tailspin, they inspired me too. And reading Thierry's words, which had inspired Bao, further inspired me. And so my blog become my journal, so much so that I worry about the ephemeral nature of it--it could all be deleted in an instant--and so have begun to copy my entries and print them, to bind them in a new kind of journal.

Writing this blog has brought me closer again to Bao, which is a wonderful thing. It has introduced me to Thierry and Nghiem, both of whom share so many complexities with me, and I feel the energy of new acquaintance, one that feels so comfortable and natural. And I read Robert's blog eagerly, for not only was the writing elegant, but his ideas and insights are valuable and teach me something. So my blog, as I told Bao recently, has in some ways taken me over; but it has also energized my other work, my composing and painting.

So Thierry, this picture, from a painting of mine, is a promise; that light will come out of knowledge, that darkness in our lives must be balanced by brilliant color, and that mourning is a kind of discovery of ourselves. I no longer wish, for myself at least, to be free from pain. I only wish to understand it.