Diary of James Kochalka

About four years ago I came across the online diary of James Kochalka; from October 26 1998 up until New Year's Eve, he sketched a moment from his day, often brief meaningless moments, but moments nonetheless. When I found the diary, I shuffled right back to the beginning and read the lot and have continued to visit his site: americanelf.com every few days since to keep up with what's going on in his life.

During the thirteen years of American Elf, Kochalka (it seems weird using his surname like I would with another writer because it kind of feels like I know him) has documented not only the small joys and painful lows of everyday life, but also the big events that have happened during that time: the birth of his two children and recently, the death of his father. The diaries, whilst brief, are intimate and Kochalka has freedom, that makes good art into great art, to lay his life (the good bits and the bad bits) before his reader and it makes for fascinating and addictive stuff.

My twins boys, Ned and Jarvis, had been born shortly before I found his diaries and I found his entries helpful, I guess enlightening. This sounds a bit grandiose because he's a very different person to me, and I don't particularly aspire to be like him, but the day to day emotional accounts of being a dad rang true for me. Novels that discuss being a father can tend to focus on big events and use these to reflect truths about relationships, but these diaries simply paint the tick-tock of day to day existence which is surely everyone's experience, and the emotional experience of moving from one day to the next can swing around the emotional compass in a haphazard fashion which is exactly what Kochalka expresses, not deliberately, but naturally because he is simply penning his life.

I will certainly miss his daily diaries.