I wrote a journal for the two gap years between undergrad and grad school. I always imagined my future daughters reading it and learning from it. Then I had two sons.
I have thought about burning my filled journals many times, and I can't bring myself to do it. It's possible that it will happen without help from me, since I live in an area that is officially categorized as "high fire risk." I scoured the contents of a stack of my 2021 notebooks recently, which was occasionally pleasant and mostly painful. I was trying to find a flash piece that I wrote but never typed (arg), and I haven't yet found it. I loved Sarah Manguso's Ongoingness, and I loved this piece you shared. Maybe all of this is a lesson in helping us dig into each moment, write some of it down, and then let it go.
Your reflection on a writer's material accoutrements such as Italian leather-bound diaries here reminds me of your discussion of the importance of your childhood writing desk at the Book Vault in Iowa last year. For me it’s French “bloc notes” and various library study carrels that are viscerally associated with some of my favorite writing rituals. The senses, some more than others, are deeply implicated in writing practice.
Love that reading this piece immediately drove me to my own journal. This is not the first (note surely last) time that one of your newsletters has wormed its way into my brain and made me rethink writing as *so much more* than just a simple means of expression. Your writing honestly aches in all the best ways and I’m so glad you take the time to share these with us. 💛
Another thought-provoking piece. How many weeks in a row are you going to come up with these? When will the well run dry?
My journal has already made me a mystic. If a mystic is a contemplater, a dweller, a muser, a noodler, a finder of meaning, a discerner, a poet, then I'm a mystic in my writings to myself. And it enriches my life.
I've made them open to my sons. I've told them they can read them after I die. But I did sanitize a few sections when I ranted about their life choices or video games. Yeah, I really went off on video games. Probably only one of my sons will have the patience to read them, but who knows, maybe for him they'll be wonderful nostalgia, or maybe he'll learn some things about life, or maybe he'll smile, look to the heavens and say hello or say a prayer for me. I've often had that thought as I click away at my morning musings and processing of life.
I wrote a journal for the two gap years between undergrad and grad school. I always imagined my future daughters reading it and learning from it. Then I had two sons.
I have thought about burning my filled journals many times, and I can't bring myself to do it. It's possible that it will happen without help from me, since I live in an area that is officially categorized as "high fire risk." I scoured the contents of a stack of my 2021 notebooks recently, which was occasionally pleasant and mostly painful. I was trying to find a flash piece that I wrote but never typed (arg), and I haven't yet found it. I loved Sarah Manguso's Ongoingness, and I loved this piece you shared. Maybe all of this is a lesson in helping us dig into each moment, write some of it down, and then let it go.
Your reflection on a writer's material accoutrements such as Italian leather-bound diaries here reminds me of your discussion of the importance of your childhood writing desk at the Book Vault in Iowa last year. For me it’s French “bloc notes” and various library study carrels that are viscerally associated with some of my favorite writing rituals. The senses, some more than others, are deeply implicated in writing practice.
Love that reading this piece immediately drove me to my own journal. This is not the first (note surely last) time that one of your newsletters has wormed its way into my brain and made me rethink writing as *so much more* than just a simple means of expression. Your writing honestly aches in all the best ways and I’m so glad you take the time to share these with us. 💛
In a fit of emotional something, I threw away a stack of my filled journals. It pains me every time I think about it.
Another thought-provoking piece. How many weeks in a row are you going to come up with these? When will the well run dry?
My journal has already made me a mystic. If a mystic is a contemplater, a dweller, a muser, a noodler, a finder of meaning, a discerner, a poet, then I'm a mystic in my writings to myself. And it enriches my life.
I've made them open to my sons. I've told them they can read them after I die. But I did sanitize a few sections when I ranted about their life choices or video games. Yeah, I really went off on video games. Probably only one of my sons will have the patience to read them, but who knows, maybe for him they'll be wonderful nostalgia, or maybe he'll learn some things about life, or maybe he'll smile, look to the heavens and say hello or say a prayer for me. I've often had that thought as I click away at my morning musings and processing of life.