Diarism

By Robert Tighe

I never kept a journal or

a diary or anything like that 

no of-the-moment written record

no jotted list of escapades

no daily recall of daily events

in truth perhaps it was simply

evident lack of interest in 

keeping track or reliving 

events for a woefully deficient memory

or perhaps because in the rush of

the present there was no time to 

rephrase and rehash the past

for, after all, by the time

any of us get around to writing down

what we’ve recently completed

it is indeed the past and gone

well behind us although 

given the reality of reality

we would have gained the advantage 

that we can rewrite the past as

interpretations or better yet, improvements

to reconfigure the day’s events

make of them something that

might well have happened

in a better more agreeable world

with interpretive commentary

perhaps even make of them  

a lesson for future reference

something we would never be 

quite able to do in the moment,

while we were living it

(a lesson for the future that, I admit, 

I will probably have forgotten 

the next time around).

Regrets? Non, je ne regret rien.

Admitting that it’s easier to not regret

what you don’t remember.

The immediate question though

is why write it all down right away

I’ve already just been there 

I’ve lived it and it has become

a part of my stored memory

not quite indelible not to be forgotten 

at least not entirely even if 

it hasn’t been committed to paper

or to the tap of flat keys and

the silent image of 12-point 

black icons on white simulacrum

surely it has then become part of my

lived experience 

surely I would always remember the basics

and be able to recall what had happened

and when and why and with whom?

But then not so much.

Looking back a decade later

or longer much of what came before 

has slipped away so not so much 

remembered, really

in fact, no.