Sometime in 2021, I added a feature to my running log: On this Day. It uses a plugin my husband Scott created to post all of your entries, through the years, written on today’s date. Since I’ve been writing in this log for more than 5 years, and almost daily, I have a lot of entries (as of March 14, 2022: 1449 entries). It’s fun and useful to look back on what I’ve written in the past. And, it’s fascinating to witness many different versions of Sara next to each other.
I like using this plugin:
- to track changes in the weather from year to year
- to see how my volume of running has changed
- to rediscover poems I’ve posted in the past
- to be reminded of what I was doing, and to double-check my memories with the “facts” as they were recorded when they happened
- to remember how I felt in the early days of training for a marathon or studying poetry or living through COVID, and to witness how my feelings have changed (or not) as I’ve become used to these things
- to find inspiration/ideas for new experiments/poems/essays in my old words
- to rediscover the words of others that I had posted and forgotten
- to hang out with past Saras
- to witness (some of) the origins of a piece of writing (a poem, an essay)