Saturday, February 2, 2013

Saying Goodbye to My Journal

I filled out the last pages of my garden journal last weekend. I felt the end with a sense of mixed pride and panic. This was a free-form flow of the crazy mess that lives inside my head. The journal was heavy stock paper, the pens I used were colorful and bright. The handwriting I chose was wildly out of control or tightly purposeful. And the thoughts that arrived on the page varied from shopping lists to trite poems, or quiet observations of rain fall, bird chatter and the breezes I felt while sitting in my purple chair.

In this book, I've recorded my growth from a wannabe gardener to the genuine thing. In this book, I left remnants of half thoughts that I might flesh out into to posts in my Putter blog. In this book, I compensated for my lack of drawing skills with flowering handwriting flourishes, alternating with pink and green and purple pens. In this book, I wrote down page numbers, like bread crumbs, to find my way back to books or catalogs or journals that I've read. And now it's done.

So I've bought a new journal and this morning, I baptized it with a few entries, but it isn't quite my friend yet. The paper isn't as thick and my heavy ink pens bleed through. It's a moleskin—what the cool kids use—and it's the right size for tucking into my purse or tool bag and it's got a nice band and some page marking ribbons.
And it's got some stickers. Not free form. A little more organized. I don't know. I hope it works. The Putterer



4 comments:

  1. I used to keep a journal, too, full of pics from magazines/catalogs but my blog has become my journal. I kept my old journal, though. It's interesting to go back and read it and then reflect on how far I've come, too. :o) Happy journaling!

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  2. Thanks Ms. CM. Thanks for comments!

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  3. Hope you warm up to your newest journal. Isn't funny how after filling up the one you've been writing in for so long, you now feel lost?! I used to feel that way with journal writing when I was back in hs and college. I'd get close to those journals...! Now I don't keep journals but I can only imagine--as if you've lost your best friend! Try to pretend it's the same one you're writing in; and keep the old one with this new one so whenever you write it still has that sense of familiarity to it :)

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  4. Thanks Jan. I'm working on loving my new journal. And I do keep the two together. Big weekend coming up for getting some planting going and starting some seeds. Hope you're enjoying it too!

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