Valuing A Life By Louise Applebome

By Louise Applebome

Oct. 7, 1975:

“Well here I go attempting another journal. This time I feel like I’ll enjoy continuing it because the idea was proposed by someone I have the most respect and admiration for.”

That first entry in a black, leather-bound journal, on unlined paper, was written when I was twenty-one years old. It did, indeed, kick off a lifetime habit of journaling. And although I no longer journal daily, you can always find journals in progress stacked on my night table and on the ottoman in the living room. I never travel without one. 

A collection that’s boxed, ordered, and “archived” includes forty-one books that span 1975 to 2017. 

The person cited above who inspired me to keep a journal was Laurin Raiken (1942-2023) my advisor at New York University. Together, we customized a curriculum at The University Without Walls (now The Gallatin School of Individualized Study), a college at NYU, mostly void of any structure (for better or for worse) that allowed me to create a patchwork of independent study and internships which would ultimately add up to a bachelor of arts degree. Most untraditional. But without Professor Raiken’s patience, encouragement, and hand-holding (metaphorically), none of that would have happened. 

The first journal includes a year living with high school and college friend Linda Braun in an apartment at 96 Perry Street (just west of Bleecker Street) in New York’s West Village and another year at 104 Second Avenue (between Sixth and Seventh Streets) in a much larger apartment in the East Village. Linda and I were also roommates in a dorm at NYU for one semester. We were fairly compatible, but not great communicators. While recently sifting through some old journals, I was reminded that she had a much more active social life than I did and a revolving door of gentleman callers. I wrote about my resentment and jealousy. Sadly Linda died of cancer when only in her early fifties. And although we maintained occasional contact, I’m sorry we never got to examine our relationship as more mature adults and to heal any festering wounds or unresolved issues and feelings that may have been dangling from those early years. 

As I began to look through the journals, it was clear that there were recurring motifs. 

Jealousy, however, was not one of them.

Loneliness, depression, eating disorders, family drama, heartache, longing, aspiration, rejuvenation, silver linings, and seeking and honoring my true nature were some of them. 

Also from the inaugural entry on Oct. 7, 1975, at age 21:

“The idea of letting myself  “be” is so wonderful and I try every day to achieve this. It’s difficult. Some days I hate myself for having so much trouble being me”… “I feel sad but hopeful.”

If only I had been able to comfort and encourage that somewhat unmoored and unhappy younger version of me. In fact, my rudder up until about age twenty had been dance. I was a serious, committed ballet and modern dancer. But because of my depleted self-esteem and dissatisfaction with my life, I decided to drop the dancing and see if a new course would give me firmer footing. Ever the seeker.

I grew to learn that the emotional problems were all being generated from the inside out and had nothing to do with dancing. In fact, dancing had been an enormous (if not only) source of joy for me and something at which I excelled. So there was a bit of self-sabotage in my giving up on dancing. But the pivot had its pluses, too. It was the right choice at the right time.

Fast forward to 2007, when I retired from the business world and earned my certification to teach yoga. I returned from a thirty-year detour back into the mind/body/movement connection that informs my truest nature. I took a long and circuitous route to arrive there. But we know that good things come to those who wait; patience is a virtue. 

March 27, 1984, age 30: 

“I would eventually like to develop a routine that is very specific from start to finish (i.e. a Jane Fonda workout). It will combine ballet, aerobics, stretching, and relaxing techniques. The result would be toned muscles, flexibility, stress reduction, improved stamina, weight loss and re-distribution, and self-fulfillment. Now that sounds like a worthwhile hour.”

It also sounds a lot like the yoga I went on to love and teach about twenty-five years later. But, en route, I was still struggling to find an anchor. 

All of these long-ago anecdotes rose to the surface recently when I asked myself if it was time to throw out these old journals that are just collecting dust on the floor of one of my bedroom closets. Why keep them? Why get rid of them?

I know that at certain points over the last fifty years, I’ve contemplated typing all these handwritten pages up (or having them scanned) to have them published. (This was before the popularity of self-publishing.) I’m sure I thought the creative writing; existential angst; young adult struggles; exploration into the human condition, our place on earth, and in death; and all the insight, digging, and dredging that went into all of it would make for a good read. 

Needless to say, I never have gotten around to typing this set of forty-one journals up. In fact, I was not enamored during my re-readings of the often insipid and repetitious material. One might wonder, “How many years can one dedicate to contemplating one’s navel?”

But that in no way implies that I or anyone else should ever be dismissive of this life-long pursuit. And nothing can deny nor erase the therapeutic value of my writing for myself all these many years. 

If we seek solace from a therapist or spiritual guide, the content and context of those conversations can often be quite personal and intimate. It’s not meant to be shared with the masses. It’s part of a process of getting to the heart of the matter, of figuring out what makes us tick so that we can discover our most genuine and authentic selves…to find contentment, and solutions to problems…to peel away the layers of the onion, and to unpack the entanglements in our lives. My journaling wasn’t intended to be presented to the world. Quite the contrary. It was the process that mattered. The remaining volumes of handwritten pages are almost irrelevant. Again, that in no way minimizes the importance of what I said and say in my journals. It in no way marginalizes my feelings or insights. And if focusing on the same motifs for years and years was the design of my personal writing journey, I’m grateful I had and have that outlet. But the breadth of the content was and is for me…not for anyone else. 

I’m reminded of a painting technique developed by Michele Cassou that she calls Point Zero Painting. The finished paintings are not important. In fact, some of them are thrown away. The aim is to unlock creative potential. She writes, “This unique self-questioning method leads us into the wild, untamed place within us where there are no judgments or rules. This is the place where we can feel fully alive and creative, a place where we can express and explore the mystery of our lives.” 

She echoes the exploration and ethos that permeates my journals. 

May 19, 1986, age 32:

“What I really want is some warm hugging and loving but as that’s not available in my life right now, I have to rely on my own strength and nurturing. I feel like I’m ready for a good cry. Maybe something I write tonight will trigger that.”

The writing invited me into the “untamed place where there are no judgments or rules.”

It helped me to crystallize thoughts and ideas and to awaken and spark emotions.

June 19, 1994, age 40:

“But I know the priority I place on man-related issues is unbalanced. And although I say I am not really interested, I am desperate and wishing that someday the right relationship/connection will come along…”

If only I’d known and been able to internalize the essence of this poem by the late Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott… 

He wrote it in 1976, back at the nascency of my life’s journey on paper. 

Love after Love

The time will come 

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Years of dancing, yoga, writing, working, living, wrestling with choices, loves gained and lost, succeeding, failing, and starting over again, have carried me into my 70’s and beyond and to the love of Walcott’s poem.

So what will happen to the journals?

I think I shall continue to comb through the forty-one books in this collection. 

A very peripheral glance through just a few of them already revealed some long-forgotten truths and/or misconceptions. 

And then I suppose after a final dalliance with each journal (whenever that may be), I’ll begin to say goodbye to them, one by one, and to spare whoever might be tasked with cleaning out that closet (when I’m gone and/or incapacitated) the imposition of having to sit in on a very private, nearly fifty-year creative and therapeutic process.  

Namasté.

Louise Applebome, 70, is a Certified Yoga Instructor in Dallas. After “retiring” from a vibrant and varied professional career, she became a yoga teacher. She teaches all her classes on Zoom right now and accepts students, young or older, from wherever they are, both geographically and in their pursuit of a yoga practice. Louise will help you stay fit and flexible, and release tension, aches & pains from the body…and the mind. Her yoga studio in Dallas is del norte yoga. You can reach out to her at [email protected].