life

August 23, 1968

 

August 23, 1968

 This entry reminds me of a line from Annie Hall by Woody Allen – “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”  The quote has also been attributed to Groucho Marx and it crystalizes some Freudian concepts (according to something I read on the internet). While the quote isn’t mine, the idea it expresses resonates.

Literary Screening Committee
Wilcox 1967 Literary Screening Committee (School Magazine)

 The moment I got kicked off the Wilcox literary magazine, I wanted to get back in. Once reinstalled, I lost interest. Cathy was right when she questioned my commitment, although she should’ve done it to my face. Wanting what I’ve lost (or can’t have) wreaked havoc with my adolescent love life. Nice guys who genuinely liked me got taken for granted; I obsessed about jerks who couldn’t care less. I identified with sad songs of unrequited love, not joyful tunes about finding my soulmate.

Wilcox Literary Magazine '68
Wilcox Literary Magazine ’68

Sad lyrics still move me more than happy ones, but today I make better choices. That said, sometimes I still treat the people closest to me worse than I treat virtual strangers, whose approval I crave. Fortunately, the people I love – who love me back – are forgiving and understanding. They deserve my best and one of these days, they’ll get it.

 

August 20, 1964

 

August 20, 1964

Joyce holding the killer canine, Lady
Joyce holding the killer canine, Lady

 My father remembered that night well. In the darkness of our tent, one by one he heard sniffles from the surrounding sleeping bags. Marion Voxland was the parish worker for Hope Lutheran, my father’s church. She took care of our pets while we were in Iowa. We had a Pekinese dog, Lady, and a cat, Princess, who recently had kittens. Abner was my kitten.

Joyce with Lady, Janet with Princess, me with Abner
Joyce with Lady, Janet with Princess, me with Abner

These were our first pets because my parents, having grown up on Iowa farms, viewed cats and dogs as animals that belonged outside. Veterinary expenses for a pet were an unnecessary expense. Spaying and neutering wasn’t a thing yet, so canines and felines (like Princess) were constantly over-populating. My parents weren’t cruel to cats or dogs. They just didn’t consider them people.

My sisters and I felt differently, and still do. Our pets are part of the family. Science might say different, but I attribute human thoughts and feelings to them. Jealousy, joy, disdain, outrage. I see these emotions and more in my pets.

"Go ahead - make my day."
“Go ahead – make my day.”

Over the years, my mother became a co-conspirator with my sisters and my efforts to welcome more animals into the house. Occasionally, she’d even drive us to the pound so we could visit them. My father couldn’t help getting attached to our pets, once he got to know them – which meant we all cried when one of them crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

August 13, 1989

August 13, 1989

The Villa - Elizabeth Taylor's former digs were just down the beach
The Villa – Elizabeth Taylor’s former digs were just down the beach

It’s weird to read an entry like this when photographs of the same day tell a different story. Several explanations spring to mind.

  1. I’m a born curmudgeon and complainer.
  2. I suffered a hormonal imbalance.
  3. It takes me a while to acclimate to new places.
  4. I lost at bridge, which always puts me in a terrible mood.
  5. No matter where I find myself, I want to be somewhere else.
  6. All of the above.
Me with our host, Ed Cutter
Me with our host, Ed Cutter

In 1989, the answer was “all of the above.” In the ensuing decades, I’d like to think I’ve matured to the extent that I no longer yearn to be someplace else. On the contrary, I’m grateful to be exactly where I am right now.

John, me, Ed Cutter
John, me, Ed Cutter

Why did it take me so long to realize the benefits of living here and now, something most people don’t need to “learn” at all? I believe I was born this way. If you know anything about the enneagram, I identify as a #4 – people prone to melancholy nostalgia over a lost, idealized past. Not exactly the life of any party (that might be a #7).

Puerto Vallarta 1

You can’t get over being a #4 (or any other number) – we are all who we are. That doesn’t mean we can’t be a better version of ourselves.

Puerto Vallarta 2

In this case, believe the pictures – not my words.

 

July 30, 1994

July 30, 1994

How I try to look on social occasions like birthday parties.
How I try to look on social occasions like birthday parties.

I don’t need a personality test to tell me I’m a classic introvert. Reserved, reflective, check. Prefer observation to participation, check.  Exhausted by too much social stimulation, check.

How I really feel after too much socialization.
How I really feel after too much socialization.

However, for a brief spell in my thirties, I passed as an extrovert. John and I threw outrageous parties and paid heavenly bills. Instead of waiting for invitations, I had to send them.  I had to place calls (and risk having them not returned!) instead of waiting for people to call me. Hardest of all, I had to feign interest in other people’s lives instead of thinking about me, me, me all the time. It didn’t come naturally, that’s for sure.

David Schnorr (?), Dianne Simon (?), Dale, Michael Elias, J, Debbie Blum, Laraine Mestman (I'm taking the photo)
David Schnorr (?), Dianne Simon (?), Dale, Michael Elias, J, Debbie Blum, Laraine Mestman (I’m taking the photo)

Amazingly, 27 years ago, we made it to a birthday party in South Pasadena and a dinner party in Beverly Hills and had a fine time at both! Today, either one of those events would exhaust my reservoir of sociability for a week. I need my time alone to wonder what you think about me.

David Schnorr & Dianne Simon (?), me, J, Debbie Blum, Dale, Laraine Mestman (Elias behind camera)
David Schnorr & Dianne Simon (?), me, J, Debbie Blum, Dale, Laraine Mestman (Elias behind camera)

I suspect even extroverts socialize less as they age, despite theoretically having more time. A couple of F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes suggest depressing reasons why.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is in the thirties

For most men and women

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beneath his party-boy facade, he must’ve been an introvert.

July 24, 1979

July 24, 1979

Around 1979 (I think)
Around 1979 (I think)

I’ve always looked to others, frequently male, for validation, especially when it came to my looks. My personal bar for beauty was Jean Shrimpton. I was tall, but she was taller and thinner. The Shrimp didn’t suffer bad hair days. She never over-plucked one eyebrow, dyed her hair an unfortunate shade of orange or popped a pimple, as far as I could tell.

JS

When I was 17, all I saw in the mirror was my chipped front tooth, the scar on my lower lip, my nose. Time changes everything. I’m sure I’m not the only boomer babe who stumbles across a photo of her teen-age self and thinks, “Wow. I used to be something” – even if I wasn’t the prettiest girl in the room.

At 17
At 17

I’m not the girl in those photos anymore and I’ll never be the prettiest girl in the room, unless it’s an AARP meeting. So what? Dave gave me a much more important compliment that night. There’s no shelf life on being interesting. It’s possible I’ll be more interesting at 100 than I was at 28 – even as my skin and joints go downhill.

Today - not 100 yet - but far from 17!.
Today – not 100 yet – but far from 17!

Every year it’s easier to recognize what holds its value. My family. My faculties. I’m no longer young and beautiful, but plenty of people love my “aching soul.” For me, today, that’s enough.

July 3, 1986

 

July 3, 1986

Tata & Anni, as they called each other. Tata loved to perch on counters - and pianos.
Tata & Anni, as they called each other. Tata loved to perch on counters – and pianos.

This is one of those entries in which nothing significant happens – but I’m so glad I wrote it down! Thirty-five years later, these are the entries I love to discover – and I do mean discover – because I have no conscious memory of any of it.

Sharing a stroller.... or a horse
Sharing a stroller or a horse

Far too many of my diary entries describe phone calls I made or received, the writing I did or didn’t accomplish, the bill from a run to the Price Club (Costco), my weight and what I ate that I wish I hadn’t – all of it meaningless now. Instead, I should have documented those precious, fleeting moments with my children.

Tata insists on driving the car Anni got for his birthday or a bath in the kitchen sink - note Anni's one-arm salute.
Tata insists on driving the car Anni got for his birthday or a bath in the kitchen sink – note Anni’s one-arm salute.

It all went by so quickly. Sure, I’ve got pictures – lots of them. They illustrate exactly what 2-almost-3-year-old Tata and one-year-old Anni looked like, but they’re only glimpses, frozen in time.  The funny things they said and did, the emergence of their unique personalities, the way the two of them interacted – unless I wrote it down, all of that is lost forever. Videos could have preserved some of it, but home movies in 1986 were beyond my area of expertise – and my budget.

This should've been a video!
This should’ve been a video!

Anni  tried to copy Tata, even when he hadn’t a clue what she was doing. She’d place one hand on her back, one on her tummy,  and bow deeply to each corner of the room.  Where did that come from?  Tata copied Anni too, notably by joining what would become his signature arm-in-the-air salute (two-arms, for extra emphasis).

Tata & Anni both salute
Tata & Anni both salute
Tata doubles down on the salute.
Tata doubles down on the salute.

Still, even in infancy, distinct differences between their two personalities emerged. Tata mobbed  her crib with plush animals. Anni methodically tossed every one of them out. Tata fearlessly jammed her mouth with marbles, pennies, anything handy and lethal. Nothing entered Anni’s mouth without scrutiny and informed consent. Tears streamed down his cheeks when I made him taste chicken.

Tata's idea of the height of hilarity.
Tata’s idea of the height of hilarity.
Anni learned to carry his bottle between his lips as Tata usually did (to keep her hands free)
Anni learned to carry his bottle between his lips as Tata usually did (to keep her hands free)

I thought these day-to-day moments weren’t important. I thought I’d remember them all. How could I be so wrong? Thank God for the times I wrote these things down.

Tata was once a full head taller than Anni. Not anymore. It ticks her off.
Tata was once a full head taller than Anni. Not anymore. It ticks her off.
They've still got a special connection. They always will.
They’ve still got a special connection. They always will.

 

 

May 17, 1969


May 17, 1969 Diary Blog Today I wonder if I read the situation and reacted appropriately. I was barely eighteen. I assumed Bob’s invitation to dinner and a movie was a date; perhaps it was. In any case on the following day, I told him I couldn’t go.  He looked hurt which made me feel as awful as I expected. After that, he avoided the store when I was working.

KK - 18 A

Writing this, I’m older than Bob was when he asked me out. That hasn’t kept me from forming friendships with some of my former millennial students. Maybe all Bob wanted was somebody sympathetic to talk to. There’s no way to read someone’s intentions, especially fifty years after the fact.

KK - 18 C

So, if my eighteen-year-old self had another chance to respond to this invitation – given today’s accumulated wisdom and experience – would I react the same way? Probably. I wish I could claim I’d have the self-awareness and courage to explain myself instead of saying “yes” then backing out at the last minute. The sad truth is, I still say “yes” to far too many invitations knowing I won’t follow through – proof one can grow old without becoming wise.

 

May 6, 1964

May 6, 1964

What made these particular incidents so traumatic was feeling publicly humiliated. I didn’t realize nobody paid the slightest attention to me or my embarrassment. I took myself far too seriously. I still do, but not to this deranged degree.

Worrying about what other people think of me (they don't)
Worrying about what other people think of me (they don’t)

The other thing that anchors this entry in 1964 is the reference to a “Jonah” day. Growing up PK, we play-acted Bible stories like the Good Samaritan or the Israelites discovering “manna” (cookie dough). Biblical names were part of our language. “Jonah day” isn’t a term I’d use today but it’s familiar – I know what I meant even though some details are hazy.  It involved Jonah in the belly of a whale which – I learned much later – is one of many universal myths, variations on Carl Jung’s “dark night of the soul.” The symbolism in many Bible stories ran deeper than my adolescent imagination could comprehend. I was lucky to be exposed to them.

I'm not sure what this game was, but Janet and my Dad are having fun.
I’m not sure what this game was, but Janet and my Dad are having fun.

As so often happens when I review old diary entries, events I considered tragic in 1964 seem merely amusing today. This gives me hope that today’s disasters will – someday – be revealed as trivial, forgettable.

 

 

 

May 2, 1965

May 2, 1965

 A PK?

A spoiled 13-year-old wrote this. Reading it today, I realize how incredibly lucky I was to be my father’s daughter even though as a PK (Preacher’s Kid), I felt pressured to be an “example” to others. The pressure didn’t come from my father. If anything, he urged me to be exactly who I was. Don’t act religious to please him. Don’t go Satanic to rebel. Listen to your own voice.

My dad, my mom and the three PK's
My dad, my mom and the three PK’s

I didn’t get any static when I chose UCLA instead of a Lutheran college. He made no effort to direct me toward a more practical major than film writing. He was even fine when I married a Catholic.

I think the idea that PK’s should be held to a higher standard is a commonly held, rarely challenged belief. That’s why a casual observer like Jane’s mother could say, “Somehow, we thought the pastor’s daughter would be different.” It’s why Dusty Springfield sang about being despoiled by “the son of a preacher man,” not “the son of a plumber.” It’s just the way it is.

Standing proudly next to my father
Standing proudly next to my father

Growing up PK was a challenge I didn’t choose but in retrospect it was a privilege. I wouldn’t trade a minute of being Pastor Vance’s daughter to be anyone else.

 

April 29, 1982

April 29, 1982

Our group is the tiny figure in the far right distance.
Our group is the tiny figure in the far right distance.

That was a lie, of course, at least as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t possibly co-exist with four other people (three of whom I didn’t live with) and not have one of them get on my nerves – but it’s entirely possible the problem is mine (too prickly, petty, over-sensitive to personal slights, etc.)

"I am a rock, I am an island"
“I am a rock, I am an island”

I opted to spend several days alone in the condo while the other four explored the island – partly because I had a writing assignment due, partly because I craved solitude. Some people can’t stand to be alone; I can’t stand to be with people for extended periods.  Unless I get a requisite amount of solitude, I turn testy and obnoxious – given that I get on my own nerves, it’s safe to assume I get on everyone else’s nerves too.

John, Gail and Bennett Traub enjoy a picnic

That said, this was one of our last “young, unencumbered” vacations. J had just turned thirty and we had one child, not three; the three of them were single but wouldn’t stay that way for long. If they did, indeed, get on my nerves, I don’t remember why; only that we had a great time.

Hawaii 1982