I have always kept a journal....at various times in my life, but more constantly in my adult years. I helps me put on paper my joys and my pains and my sorrows. It helps me sort out my thoughts when I am in turmoil. It helps me see more clearly when I have a problem and have to write it down. It helps me keep track of where I have been in my life, where I am now, and where I'm going in the future. I try to write in it every day.
AN ART JOURNAL
The last volume was more of an art journal...with pictures or designs I did by hand on almost every page. When we booked our cruise I drew a picture of the ship showing where our stateroom was. When I was sad about something I drew an umbrella with colored raindrops hitting the top of it and falling onto the ground, etc.
NEW YAHOO GROUP
So last week I was selected to join the Artists of the Roundtable. This group tries to bring about unity around the world through art. They select a certain "art form" and get a book/workbook relating to it and do the workbook together, upload the assignments, and grow as a community in the world of art. The first workshop I will be participating in is called Journal Spilling. I am excited about being a member of this elite group and having the opportunity to take different classes and learn new things and ways of expressing myself through my art. Journal Spilling is designed to help me be more free with my art in my journal using various mediums. It starts while I'm on vacation in Seattle but I'll have my little computer with me and will take my journal with me and do what I can while I'm gone. This is a self-directed course in that the assignments don't have a deadline to be done exactly. There will be worksheets sent to me via email but that is different and they are designed to lead me through the workbook.
Journals come in all sizes and shapes...most of mine are spiral bound so they can lay flat when I'm writing. I love the look and feel of these journals...some of mine are leather-covered, but most are just cardboard covered with some sort of design on the cover. Lately I have been buying nicer ones because what I write will be read by someone else someday...possibly my children. Who knows? I try to leave little bits of the wisdom that I have picked up in my life. Journals are our way of leaving knowledge and inspiration behind....also of answering questions that others' may have had about us during our lives.
I hope that you will consider keeping a journal (if you don't already) because it can be very therapeutic....and introspective. It's not the same as a blog....it's not really for public consumption....and is intimate between you and the pages inside of it.
janie
I journal too. I started when I lived in Alaska and I was in a very dark place in my life. I think my shrink suggested it when she prescribed the light box for SAD. It gives me something to do while I in front of the light box. I don't journal everyday but almost everyday. I don't journal as much in the summer, I noticed. I'm glad I started it because I have gone back and re-read it a couple of times and there are details about my life, mostly dates of significant happenings that I have forgotten. It's also interesting reading for me. One of the things it repeatedly confirms is my need to sit in front the light box in the winter. I think blogging is like journaling "lite".
ReplyDeleteI started my first diary when I was 10 years old. It was a red, leather-bound, book with a key. My mom bought it for me for my birthday. (I later learned that my mother was an avid "journaler" in her younger years, but alas.. nothing remains of those days). I wrote regularly - almost daily - until I was 21 years old. Then my entries were more sporadic and spanned many pages; a vomiting of words and thoughts and emotions. In my early 20s, I was a young married woman with two children, and a husband who was becoming mentally and emotionally abusive toward me (drugs). I wrote to get the pain out and to work through my emotions (loyalty to the marriage/man vs. self-preservation) We finally split up in 1984, and I was so overwhelmed with the responsibility of being a single mom and working graveyard shift, that my journaling became a several-times-a-year thing. However, my photography became a tool of expression, so I have many, many photos from those years... a visual journal.
ReplyDeleteI keep my written journals in a locked box, and every now and then, I'll sit down and read through them. Back in 2001, we were packing up our house in NC and moving to FL (army move) and I was re-packing my "memory box". I pulled out the journals I kept when my first marriage was disintegrating and began reading.
I sat there with tears rolling down my face, sobbing uncontrollably for the woman I was then. I had forgotten so many things from that time in my life (physical abuse, thoughts of suicide, fear) and as a present day woman reading the journals, I could not believe that they were MY words. I felt I was reading someone else's journal, and not my own. It was a very strange feeling, and I had such incredible sorrow for *her*.
At the same time, I felt overwhelming joy that I had moved through that dark time, raised two sons, and eventually met and married a man who adores me. It was a very enlightening moment for me. I locked the journals back up. I don't know if I'll ever sit and read them again. But I can't throw them out either. Perhaps when I'm gone from this earth, one of my sons, or my grandchildren - if I have any - would want those journals - as painful as some of them are.
I started writing online in Live Journal 7 years ago, and still write there. I convert it to pdf and save it on disk every year. There is so much happiness/pain/sorrow/joy in my Live Journal entries. It is where I can be 100% honest, and that honestly includes rants, political opinion, discussions about sex, the dynamics of a marriage, etc. I have a very small following of friends who have been with me from the beginning. I've met half of those friends in real life when traveling Outside. They are like family to me.
My AK blog was started just before my LJ journal. It will be 8 years old in May. I still write there a few times a week, sharing photos and thoughts about life in AK. But I keep negativity, politics, and religion to a minimum. That blog is read by many people, to include children researching Alaska, so I keep it neutral and G-rated. I enjoy writing there as much as I enjoy writing in Live Journal, but for different reasons.
I can't imagine NOT journaling. It is an integral part of my life. You can read more about my thoughts on writing in my AK Blog, under the tab "The Writer": http://susanstevenson.com/blog/about/the-writer/
Thanks for making this thought-provoking entry, Janie. Sorry for getting so long-winded!