My first journal was purple, with a fluffy cat on the front and a metallic clasped lock that never really shut properly. I was seven, the age my son is now, when I started writing in it. Almost 30 years later, my current journal has a fluffy sheep on the cover, so I’ve circled back to animals, I suppose. A stack of journal books is piled between those years. Though there are gaps, my journaling practice has been fairly consistent, a comfort and a necessity.
One of my friends told me she uses her journal as therapy, as a place to put and analyze her emotions, but mine has never served that purpose. Well, that’s not totally true. They do hold my feelings and frustrations, my anger and griefs and joys, but when I turn to my journal, my instinct is to record. To remember. To capture a particular moment in time when I existed, when the world around me was just. so.
Journaling is my love language to myself.
When I ache to write but don’t know where to start, I always begin with what the sky looks like, how the light shifts across the clouds, what the wind sounds like, whether birds are singing, whether there’s rain. I start with impressions and let the rest go from there. My journals are full of descriptions of the garden in every season, the funny words my son has said, my writing plans, our travels, my thoughts on books and work and life and faith and living.
Like all journaling, it is not wholly accurate, since I choose what I want to remember, what is worth recording, what I want to save. I try to be truthful. I try to recall what I felt, what was said. If much has happened, I make bullet point lists instead of a narrative. When the days have been busy and I haven’t had time to write, a panic squeezes my chest and I write keywords on sticky notes that I slip into my journal to write about later: “Meeting with John, first geese, grape picking, last night charade game.” I wonder at this compulsion to save it all on the page.
Forgetting is my greatest fear.
In my job, I help people find their family and local history. I research names and dates and locations, I try to connect puzzle pieces. Bring stories back to life. Help them remember. Before my grandfather died, I sat with him and asked him questions about his life, his voice pouring like silk into the recorder I held into my hand. Even so, listening back years later, I realize how much I forgot to ask him, how much I still don’t know. Not every story can be saved, no matter how many pages I use. But I have his voice, a pen, a stack of journals. It is enough.
I am a Rememberer.
This is just beautiful Jill. I am not surprised even your post it notes-"Meeting with John, first geese, grape picking, last night charade game", sound like poetry. We are luckier for having you around us, seeing us, remembering.
Love this! ❤