journaling

I had a lovely, a near perfect, Saturday morning. It is gorgeous out, if chilly for late March, and I went walking up to Inwood through the sunshine, through Fort Tyron Park and north along Seaman Avenue, to meet Eva for coffee on 218th Street. We haven't seen each other in years so it was nice to catch up a bit. We wandered through the farmers market on the south edge of Isham Park, bought cheese, eggs, apples, garlic, scallions. Eventually we parted ways and I walked back south again through the sunshine, along the eastern edge of Fort Tryon Park, all the way home.

We talked a bit about our Barnard days, and about our differing experiences of BG, of loss, of ways of grieving. These things have been on my mind recently, as I've already written about here before, and for Eva, well, one of her patients passed away not too long ago, and this has been hard on her.

I kept a journal almost religiously through out much of college and the years immediately following. Since then only intermittently, other than the notebook that lives in my bag for jotting down random thoughts, lists, names, places. I've been reading through some of these old journals lately, chuckling at my 20-something-year-old self, her naivete, her small pleasures, her grandiose anxieties and preoccupations and fears, and her sometimes overly meticulous attention to detail.

14th September, 1998
Bill McAllister called earlier to ask if I could run up to his office in Lehman to get his keys which he'd left in the door. When I got to his office the keys weren't there but Professor Kaye's door was open so I knocked just to say hello. We were both sort of surprised to see the other there at 9 o'clock at night. I told him of Bill's keys (it's funny to me that they've been friends for ever) and it turns out he'd taken them to hold on to. He and I talked for a bit about classes and Philadelphia -- he went to Penn and seemed excited that I might move down there. He asked what I want to do so I told him about library science school and how I might ask Tania for a recommendation. At that he said he'd like to also write me one if I ever needed one. It was just really nice. Kaye is a wonderful professor, I think. Even though I've had only one class with him I think I love him the most of all my professors. Somtimes I imagine Dad must have been something similar to Joel Kaye.