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Sunday, February 29, 2004
So despite my best efforts in October, I have once again allowed laziness and circumstances to overcome sense and my NEED to write. It could, of course, be argued that since I'm still, you know, technically, alive, "need" is the wrong word to apply to my urge, desire, or whatever, to write. By the same token, it could also be argued that the line between life and death is fuzzier than most people will acknowledge and being "technically" alive is not at all the same thing as living.
Writing a journal entry about journal entry writing is also not at all the same thing as writing a "real" journal entry.
*I mentioned in the opening post of this series that I began keeping the Spiral Notebook Journal in July of 1983. It is a complete fluke that all three of the offerings to this point have come from 2004. I found them in a wad of entries I had previously printed from the computer files I saved the journal to (from its handwritten origins) in 2005 and not from digging through the battered volumes themselves. But those typewritten entries (each saved with some specific purpose in mind--a purpose, needless to say, I have long since forgotten in most cases) cover several decades and still somehow I've cribbed notes from 2004 three weeks in a row. This is probably not as interesting or potentially significant as it seems to me at this moment. I am also probably not going to recall the promise I am about to make, which may be a blessing in disguise, but next Sunday, I promise to offer up something from that first spiral notebook, begun a few days before my fifteenth birthday.
I agree wholeheartedly: the line between life and death is fuzzier than most people will acknowledge. Writing is (and always has been as I started my first journal when I was 11 years old) my way of knowing that I am alive.
ReplyDeleteBTW, your comment about writing a journal entry about journal entry writing reminded me of a piece I wrote one day when I was determined to write and was getting frustrated at some of the obstacles in the way. It's short and goofy:
http://sebtown294.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-write-blog-entry.html
I kept a journal from the time I was 16 until I was in my early thirties. About the time I started blogging, I didn't have a burning need to write in my journal. I was only a faithful daily writer during two years....my sons first year of life, and two years later, my daughters. Looking back, I'm amazed that during the craziest years, I took the time to write every day.
ReplyDeleteI just had to! It was an intense desire to record what my baby had done. And yes, some entries are just one line, but I love reading them all the same.
Wow, incredible that you still have those. :-) I have a few from my teenage years, but did stay consistent as an adult.
ReplyDeleteI've always been encouraged to keep a journal. And having read some journal entries from those who came before me - I can tell you what a great blessing those journals are. Sometimes they are a true mirror into the soul.
ReplyDeleteI am in awe of the fact that you have kept a journal for so many years (and written so consistently!) Very interesting observation about life/death...gave me food for thought for the eve!
ReplyDeleteI created a "journal" also while I was in the service in the form of hundreds of letters home to family members, who "kept" them away for the past 37 years, until I started writing in March. Now I have a wordhoard of inestimable value, to peruse for bits and pieces to jumpstart my cotton-candy brain.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a journal from the age of about 13 on. Every single day. But, after I got married at 25, I stopped. I feel like I lost so much during all those years. I not only didn't journal, I didn't write. At all. I'm trying to make up for it now.
ReplyDeleteA precursor to the blogger who blogs about blogging. I'm glad I'm not alone ;-).
ReplyDelete