On the Writing Journal

I have the habit of writing ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ letters in the journals I keep, as if they were acquaintances who turn into close friends and not inanimate objects I project myself onto. I don’t really know of any other way to begin and end the time I’ve spent with a journal; it only seems fair to acknowledge the sacrifice it has made for the sake of my art and my personal intimacies. Over the time I keep it, it becomes part of me, like an extra limb or an extension of my mind. I feel the least I can do is recognize it for what it evolves into, an imprint of me as I was for an unspecified duration of time.

Perhaps that is why I continue to write everything down first rather than adapt to the easy convenience of the keyboard. I let my wrist cramp, my right middle finger grow its callous, and my fingernails impress painfully on my palm for the (perhaps pretentious) belief that this way is more honest, more pure. Physically writing feels more personal to me, a hybrid of my pre-adolescent habit of diary-keeping and the day-to-day snatches of plot that fill my head up now. What is written out on the page becomes permanent, unobliterated by cursor or slash marks or sheer will of mind. For better or worse, it’s there, a reference for a future self to steal from or ignore. I can choose to look at it again, recall the moment, the context, the feeling. Despite the vagueries, so much can be gleaned or remembered from a select word or phrase which otherwise seems obscure to those who lack context. For that, I so relish having the choice to keep my journals shut against time and eye.

Or, I could open them up again after a while and take on the role of the “objective” reader. The process, the development of the art, is the part I love best. The spontaneity of writing in the moment, the transcription into another medium, the rearranging and deletion and addition of words and phrases to craft the ideal written image. The determination of what is good and what is not, what is worth sharing and what to never allow past the first draft. This power is why I continue to fill up journals and let them accumulate on the bookshelf as if I, the private and secretive author, deserve my place among the public literature.

It’s my ego, hidden away on pages of books that no one will read.

 

So this is farewell, old friend…

I am finally at the last page.

There is more to be said,

more to be shared,

but there is no more space here to put it.

You are finite,

despite all of the promise your empty pages held.

And they carry three years’ worth

of memories,

of poems,

of stories,

of emotion locked away.

I cannot regret this bond.

I will always keep you with me,

look back on what we shared,

take from you new inspiration

in these old words.

You hold part of me now,

a version of me as I was and will not be again.

A record.

A truth.

I’ve reached your end, and must start anew.

So goodbye.