Archives Past ReEntry Sites Apply What grabs you? Schedule Upcoming ReEntry Editors
	This week's ReEntry editor is... Kathryn Ash Scoop

Tell me a story, evoke an image, conjure that which is invisible to me. Wrap these things in fine observation and humour and clarity. Place words with such care as to make me revel in them. Open hidden doors, show me the rooms that you have constructed for yourself, let me tour through your life and times.

Mountain Time
Evaporation

"I was born in the shadow of the Matterhorn, the fake one, and for my entire childhood it was visible from the houses I lived in. There, just minutes from my room, sat the pinnacle of amusement, and with that kind of proximity its charm could do nothing but fade. Living in deepest Orange County was like living in a coal-mining district where, instead of the local workers coming home dusty from a day of digging, they came home tired from a day of flying to the moon..."

Difficult, it is, to chose just a forty word excerpt from Steve Amaya's extraordinary journal "Evaporation" which will do it justice. His writing style is so smooth and witty, so engaging and honest, that you will read and just kept reading. No detail escapes him and yet no detail is unremarkable. With 'Evaporation' Steve consistently achieves what T.S. Elliot believed writing was all about; "to take what is familiar and make it strange, and to take what is strange and make it familiar."

Monday, 2 November 1998
Four Seasons

"I particularly enjoyed the exchange between Walsingham and Norfolk regarding the latter's execution. 'Cut off my head and the people will call me a martyr. They will remember me,' Norfolk said. 'No,' Walsingham shook his head, and said very softly, 'They will forget.' I found that especially profound, because Walsingham was right. Save for historical buffs, students and academics, the people have forgotten. So many were prepared to face torture, persecution and death for their religious convictions, and yet for the most part, they have been forgotten. Or dismissed as hazy figures from centuries ago, removed and distant from modern society."

Nina's 'Four Seasons' is an Australian journal -- refreshing in itself to see another fellow Aussie online. She's direct but thoughtful, such as the above excerpt from an entry concerning the movie "Elizabeth." This observation caught my attention. It reaches beyond the often self-concerned limitations of a diary and into meta-themes about society and the way it turns. It opens doors into how the writer thinks, pulls the reader into thinking about that theme as well. To me, that's precious work.

Welcome to the Dollhouse
Abode

"I write words. I write them here, in this place. Moments which would otherwise be lost like tears in rain are brought to a bigger place, to be laid down in the gooey mortar of cyberspace. The word is living, breathing and it becomes life itself. The way I am intensely mindful of every flickering candle, every hovering gnat is to hear the word in my head being spoken, the words that I would use to describe the material places that I see, hear, touch, smell... Could be, that this journal is a voodoo doll, with pins made out of suggestions and coercions and warnings and admonishments that I stick into it every so often."

This excerpt damn near leaves me breathless. Abode is subtitled "a place of mindfulness" and that it is.

Original "ReEntry" concept by The Gus () and other DIARY-L participants.