October 7, Third Age 3021…or is it the Fourth Age already?
I leave home, and take my non-diary with me
I am writing this from one of the last places I ever expected to be writing: the deck of a ship. Not only because I was afraid I would be sick if I attempted to write on a moving surface, but because I never truly thought I would cross the Sea, even when Queen Arwen gave me her token and told me what it might be for. I'm not sure I even knew until I was boarding the ship. I did not want to leave the Shire again, after all I had fought through to be able to return to it. I did not want to miss the births of Sam and Rosie's children, of whom I know there will be many more, or their coming-of-age feasts and, in turn, their marriages. I did not want to miss Merry and Pippin's weddings, if they should ever settle down! What if I should leave, forever, and regret all the joy that I had left behind?
But having embarked upon this journey, I have found, perhaps for the first time after any momentous choice, that I do not regret it. Or I should say I discovered yesterday that I did not regret it. My hurts have eased already; a painful anniversary has passed more peacefully than I ever thought it could. The way alone has power to soothe; perhaps the Undying Lands themselves can heal the wounds I thought would never heal, and restore my half-empty soul to wholeness.
Of course, there is the question of why I chose to take this book with me, when I left the other – the storybook, the history book, the book I finished and gifted to Sam – as a record of our days for future generations. The answer is not that I expect to continue to write in it in Valinor; for how could the place of perfect rest and peace I joyfully anticipate require any reflection on my part? No; I simply changed my mind – I do not want "historians of the future looking to these writings for a portrait of the famous Halfling Ring-bearer," a scenario I pictured with some amusement two and a half years ago.
Why? As I commented to Faramir, we know little of the individual traits that might humanize the great figures of the past. (Though I have to say, I've always imagined Fëanor's nervous habit to be chewing on a strand of his hair – maybe just because if my hair were as long as the Elves', I would probably chew on it. My fingernails are just the only thing within reach.) In my belief, anyway, they have become magnified and generalized so that their lives can be made into morality plays to teach their successors in history. Melkor's story teaches us that the attempt to usurp a rightful ruler's place must bring punishment. Eärendil teaches that even the gods heed and reward the plea of the steadfast and selfless. And Fëanor, to me the most intriguing historical figure by far, teaches us that pride and vanity; and bending our ears to seductive whispers; and binding ourselves stubbornly to selfish, impossible oaths; and valuing objects, however great their worth, over the lives of our kin, will lead to our destruction.
And I? What will my story teach the generations to come? Something to do with the courage of the small, and the power of perseverance and friendship, no doubt. Whatever the moral, I have made myself the Everyman of a morality play. I am a formless face, until I embody the lesson of my tale.
And what is more, the children of the future will make a hero of me. They will be wrong. They will overlook what I could not do; they will say that no one could have come as far as I did carrying the Ring, and been able to throw it away. They will simply be making excuses. But the fact remains that they will look to me as an example of courage or self-sacrifice or the like, and they will want to see themselves in me. Fortunately (or perhaps consequently?), the characterization of myself in the Red Book is nebulous, shaped chiefly by what a faithful account of my words and actions dictates (that alone, I am sure, will lend me flesh and blood). My hair is neither dark nor golden; my eyes are neither blue nor brown nor grey. I do not bite my fingernails, drop my pen, indulge in self-pity, or parody myself for doing so. I could be any child of Hobbits, or even of Men.