Help Save Endangered Skills

How quickly things come, change, transform, morph, and disappear.  In the course of one lifetime, we can, and do, celebrate new ideas and methods, new efficiencies, processes, materials, and capabilities, which better our lives, bring interesting inventions or labor-saving devices, fun entertainments, voyages to the moon, and a wealth of information data we never thought possible.  I remember as a child, a family member told me about some new invention which “could send pictures invisibly right through the air into our homes,” a concept which was both intriguing and incomprehensible to me, and now there is the ubiquitous television in every family.

     However, in the excitement of the new, there is also a sense of loss of what came before.  It is more than sentimental nostalgia.  It is the gradual loss of context, the quality which can enrich our awareness of the “now” in our daily life.

     And, along with source materials such as photographs, stories, newspaper archives, etc., that journals can help to preserve that context to the passage of our world.  I can go to a neighborhood garage sale and see a tool, and I ask myself, “What is this?”  What is it used for?  How is it used?  When could it have been made?  And it starts me on a journey of discovery which usually ends by a journal entry, with a drawing or picture of my discovery, and any information about it.  Perhaps, if all goes well, that journal entry may be a wonderful source of information for someone 200 years into the future.  Those entries which we make today become the treasures for future generations.

     In a recent discussion in the journaling class, we took a look at our lives today and brainstormed some things which are not quite yet gone, but which we feel are swiftly passing, in the hope that readers will join us in recording in our journals things which we want to help preserve. 

     To my surprise, everyone came up with Cursive Hand-Writing as their first response.  And I remember that not long ago, as a teacher, I was helping in a classroom, and the children were fascinated by watching me take my notes in swift cursive words.  I explained that cursive writing was taught a required skill when I was a child.  In school classes from about 1890s to 1950s, students in the U.S. were taught cursive writing using the “Palmer Method.” This in itself replaced the former, beautiful-but-intricate Spenserian system, as it was deemed a more efficient method for future use in the business world.  Now, with the successive use of typewriters, computers, and keyboards, even the cursive Palmer Method is no longer taught.  Even hand-written “Thank You” notes are unusual these days.  Such a loss of sensibility and courtesy to the world.  And with this in mind, it is my personal choice to maintain my cursive writing in my journals as a personal gift to some reader in the future (assuming they will still be able to read such archaic writing then).

Some other ideas which came out of the discussion are:

·        Cooking skills: cooking “from scratch,” canning, baking, preserving, etc.

·        Textile skills: Ironing, sewing, crocheting, quilting, darning, etc.

·        Trading and “haggling”

·        Tools from many trades and skills

We would be interested in hearing more suggestions from any readers of this blog.  What would it be a good idea to preserve for the future?  What can we record, explain, document to others which would help to provide future readers with the context in which they will dwell?

Some Words of Encouragement:

v     “I have drunk from wells I did not dig; I have been warmed from fires I did not build; I have been shaded by trees I did not plant.”  [Anonymous]

v     “Although I have been collecting for over thirty years, I still find it hard to define exactly what it is I collect.  The most fundamental definition is that the items in the collection were produced by solve everyday problems; to make a task simpler or easier.” [Ingenious Gadgets by Maurice Collins, p. 6.]

v     “Everything old is new again.” [Folk saying]

v     “Look closely.  The beautiful may be small.”  [Emmanuel Kant]

v     “Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes.  No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”  [Horace Mann]

Journal – A Place of Safe Deposit

[Note:  I have held back on this blog entry in order to obtain the permission of the person it concerns before publishing it.  Cornerhouse.]

     A member of our journaling group recently brought in a story to share. She explained that this was not an “ordinary” sort of entry, and that perhaps it did not belong in her journal, but that it might be better to keep it in a “special” journal, separate from the daily one.  In order to better understand, we asked her to read it, and I share this account on Cornerhouse with her permission. 

     About two years ago, this person was badly hurt in an automobile accident, resulting in a broken back, and her recovery has been slow and painful.  The day she brought her story to us, it was the two-year anniversary of the accident.  It is simply titled “The Blue Car.”  It is her memory of the accident, but told from the point of view of her concerned and loving little car.  It was a sensitive and moving account of an awful event in her life.  We all agreed that it was more than interesting, well written, and unusual, and that perhaps she might like to start a creative writing journal for this and other stories she might want to write.

     When the next week came around, she said that she had, indeed, started her creative writing journal.  In addition, she said that when she wrote the story, she had felt confused, emotional, and reluctant to revisit this experience in her life, but that using the Blue Car to talk about the event had helped her in ways she did not anticipate.

     First, it was a way of thinking about a deeply disturbing experience, and at the same time distancing herself from the pain. Second, it allowed her to record her memories of the event, while “putting it away” in a “safe place” where she could revisit it if she ever would want to.  And third, after two years, it was a way to re-interpret what had happened in a new context.  Now, she could set it aside, safe in her journal, and could take a more balanced and positive outlook.

     This is not unusual.  It often happens that journals can serve to bring new insights, perspectives, understanding, even wisdom, as we sort out our life experiences in the safety of our personal journals. 

     This was written in the first person (i.e., the car), but there are other styles which could also be used.  A scene in a play, for example, in which there are characters and dialogue, discussing an event.  There might be a comment section at the end, or suggestions to the self about what to do in similar situations encountered in the future.

     In effect, using journals as a tool, we can teach or heal ourselves from the strains and pressures of daily life. 

Some Words of Encouragement:

·        “[We] begin the way most diaries begin: all at once, with a rolling up of sleeves, an intake of breath – and a here goes.” [A Book of One’s Own by Thomas Mallon, p. xviii.]

·        “A breed apart from the diarists who write simply to collect the days or preserve impressions of foreign places are those who set out in their books to discover who they really are… Some of them are after the sight of God; others are out to realize their full ‘potential.’ Spiritual or otherwise; and some of them are carrying burdens of suffering they are unsure they can shoulder – they want to use their diaries to test, and to add to, their strength.” [Ibid., p. 75.]