I have worked almost every day since I came here to America
so I am never free.
A worker can get along better here.
I am working in a factory
where we make billiard tables.
There are 700 men in the factory
so we make several hundred tables a day.
They do everything on a big scale here.
There are 3,000 Swedes here,
three Swedish churches, and many
Swedish lodges. That is good
because it goes slow to learn English.
We are too old. I wish I had been here
ten years sooner.
THE BOX
My mother says she won’t leave Michigan without it.
But when her father goes down to get it,
all he comes up with is a slim packet
of ruled paper, bound by a piece of twine.
Jane’s Diary—Private
it says on the cover,
Private twice underlined.
She didn’t always like her sister,
and she didn’t like her parents much either,
he warns my mother, who says
she doesn’t mind. She packs it
in her suitcase, tells me
we’ll look at it in due time.
About a year later, she sends me a copy.
The diary starts in January, 1960,
when Jane was thirteen, and runs
to October of 1961.
At this moment in my life
hate is so fierce
that I would give anything to kill my mother
she begins, already
on her way
to becoming a woman.
(OCTOBER 21, 1960)
This little book is full of my ups and downs.
On one page I am obviously happy and on the next desperately unhappy.
Such is life.
Now, well now I am quiet, happy, dreamy and listening to the hi-fi.
This fall has certainly been better than last fall and I am very happy and very busy.
I am a cheerleader now and have been practicing all the time.
Also Barb was sixteen this month and we went to Ann Arbor this weekend. Plus the fact that I have Latin, algebra,
and my four other subjects. Indeed I love it! I am so pleased!
Secretly I long to be as mature & chic & sophisticated as Sandy Robertson or Gail Beatty,
but such is not possible so I shall have to be content just being Janie [M.].
GUSHING
Jane was a gusher,
my mother says.
You know, a gusher—
“I really like your dress,
I really do, I mean it’s adorable,
really and truly adorable.”
I know about gushing, how charming
it can be, and how alarming
when it comes on strong:
I went over to Jan’s Thursday nite and really spouted off.
Heidi and Suzie were there and they objected to my ideas, strenuously.
I do too I just talked.
Everything I said or did, I said or did wrong.
But all those joys, sorrows, and upsets
help you find yourself, help you to build
a life of real value. Those upsets all contribute
to my character and what I’m going to be.
I love the sound of it, a girl
surging into herself
as she writes into the night—
I am all mixed up and these pages filled with writing haven’t helped any.
I can’t sleep. I have to write.
(MARCH 7, 1960)
I’ve decided to resign from the compliment club.
This may seem trivial, but to me it’s a big thing.
I have come to the conclusion however that I am not the kind of girl
who belongs in a group such as the club and that my ideas are too strong to ignore.
Friday there will be a meeting of the club. I will not be there.
Instead I will write a letter explaining my resignation.
I will no longer be part of the crowd listed in the front of the book.
I will know how Gwyneth Nevins and Sally Fredericks feel when they are left out.
I will be an outsider.
THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL
I’ve just finished Anne Frank:
The Diary of a Young Girl.
It too spans age thirteen to fifteen—
it too covers young love, hating
one’s mother, and sibling rivalry.
The new edition has restored
some passages, such as Anne’s
description of female anatomy. She says
the clitoris looks a bit like a blister.
She describes everything she eats
(potatoes, rotten lettuce, fake gravy,
the occasional glut of strawberries)
everything she reads (genealogy, mythology)
and how the families in the attic fight
(often, and bitterly). Anne was also a gusher—
a chatterbox, as she says. But who can guess
what Anne would have said
about the last place she went.
(1960)
I bought a record. It’s called “Cuttin’ Capers” by Doris Day and it’s real cute
and happy sounding. I love it! It makes me happy and feel wonderful too!
I’m beginning to really like music and what it adds to life and its many moods.
Life is good to me!
BARB AND JANE, PART I
Two