Pink Think: “I write journals and would recommend journal writing to anyone who wishes to pursue a writing career. You learn a lot. You also remember a lot… and memory is important.” – Judy Collins
photo: my new journal
The other day, while I was out shopping for my parents’ birthdays at Barnes & Noble, I decided to get myself a new journal. I stood in front of this wall of at least four shelves of journals feeling like I was making a Very Important Choice. I gravitated towards the pink ones, but some didn’t seem sturdy enough for camping trips, which is usually when I write like crazy in my journal.
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I used to be more prolific writing in journals. Wrote in them daily, no fail, some years. With little kids, which surprises me now. Downstairs, in our basement, there is a little shelf that holds all of my journals from when I was a college student, a young wife and a young mother. I’ve written in all sorts of books: cheap spiral bound notebooks, steno pads, “real” bound journals with the word “Journal” written in a flourish on the cover with my name embossed on it, fancy hand-bound ones.
I already had one at home the day I was browsing at Barnes & Noble, just a little cheapie college notebook. I liked its pinkness, but I don’t know, it just felt, well, dispensable. Not a very special place for special thoughts.
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So I stood there feeling a little underwhelmed by my choices. It was either this paisley like sophisticated number that I hoped would hold up to a week in Lake Powell, or a cute Hello Kitty one that was covered in this rubber material, but whose novelty I worried would fade quickly.
And then from the corner of my eye, I found it. A purple sky with coconut trees. The last one of its kind in its spot. The journal that said Perfect.
When I look at the cover, I am transported back to the Philippines, and I am homesick. A little. Enough to open something soft and yielding in me, calling for me to divulge my secrets. It would be like a homecoming to open the cover and write on the pages; to ponder and remember.
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Do YOU keep a journal? What is it like?
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