Once Upon a Time… Chronicling Lives Together
By Pattie Layser
“Can I read what you’re writing?”
Whoa, Mister! I’m journaling.
We’re on our honeymoon. I love this man, but I’m bashful as a schoolgirl when he asks to see my diary.
Countering his bold intimacy, I suggest, “How about if each day you write about our honeymoon on the opposite page? After we’ve returned home, we’ll read what each other’s written.”
Our first family tradition is born, and it is possibly the best idea I’ve ever had.
By the time we arrive in Wyoming, lowered eyes and shuffling feet have morphed into handstand eagerness to see what Earle has written. Taking turns, we read each other’s impressions aloud. We laugh. We cry. Related memories spill over the top of one another. We’re back in Tahiti.
Earle’s dominant left brain recorded exact names, dates, times, temps, topless beaches, mileage, local foods, (Latin) names of flora and fauna, expenditures…. My oversized right lobe registered poetry: dawn rimming the Pacific Ocean; leis of tia blossoms, gentle fragrance braced by aromatic gardenias and hibiscus; the yin/yang of hot sun/cool waters, coarse sand/petal softness, tart pamplemousse/mellow papaya. Divine balance. Read piecemeal, some might wonder if we’d honeymooned at the same place; read together, our writings painted a hologram of the South Sea Islands, mapping their aspect for us physically and emotionally.
While I’m convinced all travel guides should be the collaboration of a male/female team, no one else’s travel log can eclipse a journal shared with your mate. I knew my husband was more pragmatic than I, but his interspersed sketches and his funny one-liners about our stumbling French are delights he shared with me alone. Even more surprising, this environmental scientist detailed what I’d worn, and what I’d said as this unique woman he had married.
Side-by-side discoveries sparked insights, revelations. When diary entries latched onto memories outside our common domain, they opened windows, offering fleeting glimpses of the kids we’d been and our life experiences before we met. Good stuff that could have taken years to surface! Philosophy crept into our observations, along with dreams, charting our future course long before we had a bead on it.
September 2007 was our fourteenth wedding anniversary, and we now have a stack of journals. We’ve carried journals to once-in-a-lifetime destinations; we’ve carried journals to mountain summits. Occasionally, we’ve grabbed our notebook to write about laid-back camping and canoe trips or a hike that knocked our socks off.
I have no doubt that researchers will eventually isolate a gene specific to women, proving that we’re wired from birth to consider our relationship to everything and everyone on earth: I may not be able to pinpoint exactly where in the world I am, but wherever I am, I’m looking to see how my sisters and brothers answer life’s big questions, how they relate to each other and the universe. Not a moment too soon, years of tuning into Earle’s observations have grounded me. I thought I’d never forget names of the restaurant where we dangled our feet in the surf, downing butter-dipped lobsters; or of the lopsided cabana a world away, its window at the head of our bed open to ocean spray. Now, given a minute to flip through my notes, I can direct fellow travelers to where I’ve been. Similarly, years of reading my observations have broadened Earle’s view of travel. While grand differences in our perspectives remain, it’s more obvious we travel together!
Recent ledgers have added illustrations—cut and pasted travel brochures, animal photos, hotel postcards—but overall, they’re an unassuming lot. Cherished memories deserve leather bindings and gold edges, but these diaries have been around, and are more prized for it. Many are simple spiral notebooks, small enough to tuck into a fanny pack. Those that rafted to the Arctic or trekked through Amazon rainforest have water-warped pages and smeared inks, but nothing that douses memories they kindle.
In 2000, Earle and I began writing for adventure travel magazines and conservation journals. Crafting a sense of place for others requires copious notes. We fill separate notebooks now, but we always share their contents.
Our traveling style has matured. Visiting third-world villages, we now backpack handfuls of dollar-store reading glasses or freshly slaughtered meat and yard goods from a regional market. Like journaling, these small actions nurture great possibilities.
My husband and I always expected to travel compatibly. Planning our honeymoon, neither of us mentioned “vacation” or “relax”; both of us wanted to maximize each day’s “must-do” adventures. What surprised us was the dimension a skinny paperback journal added.
Every day of our marriage, magic is at our fingertips. Once upon a time under dark skies, “…we board a launch to cruise to the bottom of Murchison Falls. We motor past herds of water buffalo, past Nile crocodiles rivaling the length of our Old Towne canoe in Wyoming.”
“The weather deteriorates rapidly. Roaring windblasts. Keening, keeling waters. Thunder cracks, lightning strikes, and a plume of smoke rises from the bank. In a blaring crescendo, a large herd of elephants standing offshore raise their trunks skyward, trumpeting uproariously. Thunderstorm on the Nile!”
Best of all, after years of reading what thrills Earle, I can conjure anniversary surprises as special as our wedding atop Signal Mountain. I can tailor perfect getaways for my man…watching new memories grow.