I keep trying to write this post but everything feels to trite and preachy. I am listening to the some cello music that makes me feel so relaxed…i can’t even believe it. I just finished collecting and putting up my older journals in my archives. It felt so good to go down memory lane and see how my journaling has changed and stayed the same.
I can remember the first time i seriously journaled when i was in fourth grade. I wrote about liking some boy and i ended up leaving it at my aunts house…and i don’t think i ever saw it again. I think the next time i journaled was when i was in high school. It was all text. Mostly talking about my feelings and the goings on of my life in very vague ways because i had absolutely no privacy in those days.
It was my friend, Rebecca, that introduced the concept of visual journaling to me. We were both working at Canyon Lodge and we had become fast friends. Of course, traveling in a tiny car for over four hours to get tacos will do that. I noticed one day that she had a journal that she put all sort of things in and i was smitten. So i went to the gift shop and got a journal and so it began. I think that was in 2003. The summer of my college freshman year.
If i am honest, i have never considered myself an artist until recently. I have always loved art, music and books. I have always wanted to be published and all that…i think…but maybe i just wanted those things because people told i should…i don’t really know what i want when it comes to my creativity. Or maybe i do. I want to do it. I want to show up and see what happens. I don’t have to force anything because right now my journey is on the inside.
As i looked through my *journals, i realized why i rarely do flip-thought. My work is deeply personal. Yes, i do less personal work but when you see most of my books in their entirety they are soaked with my life and soul. Some things are just not for all eyes. i try to remember to share what is and i try to remember that it’s okay because the evidence lives on in the books.
I always have one foot in, i think. I want to share but not too much. I want to give but not all of me. Maybe that is why i can’t decipher the things of my life or maybe i don’t need to. Like i said, things have a way of unfolding. My visual journal/books are evidence of that.
I don’t know why i am writing this. I think it’s because i have tried and failed to write about this world that we are living through. I just don’t have anything clever to say. I am tired a lot because of all the extra work of homeschooling, cooking and cleaning. I don’t want to complain but my body feels it. Each day, I try to write out my gratitude , take my vitamins and meds, move my body, journal , clean up, cook semi-nourishing food, do something creative and love my family as best i can.
There are things that frighten me about this and there are things that have shown me that we humans still have deep wells of tenderness, if we let ourselves access them. So i haven’t figured out much except that we can only do our best…one day at time and our life is evidence of that effort.
*on the journals —there are some Courtney Diaz collage sheets, some American craft stickers and an art print form Lori L? I think. Oh and. Ridiculous amount of clutter in my art closet…i am working on it…but not very hard. Lol.