Monday, July 16, 2012

Journaling

I've been keeping a journal for over 30 years. I started out with a Bic pen and a cheap notebook. Then for Christmas in 1980, Jilda bought me a real journal. The cover  firebrick red and felt like silk to the touch. It had flowers and small birds black and gold and looked Oriental.
She also, even though we were broker than the 10 Commandments then, bought me a really nice fountain pen.
It seems to me, that my writing got better at that point. I put more thought into the words I put to paper. Because, in a sense, it is your permanent record. Long after I'm gone, someone will inherit, and hopefully they will read what I've written. 
I kept writing, almost daily, until December of 2005 when I openen my Blogger account and started blogging every day.
Since then, my entries in my journals have been sporadic at best. Today when I opened my journal (these days it's a nice leather journal I bought from Levingers), I had not made an entry since April 27th of last year.....the day the violent tornados ripped through Alabama.
I made a decision that I wanted to continue writing in my journal. I searched until I found my fountain pen but disuse had rendered it mute.
I ran a bowl of warm water and put the nib in there to soak. When I returned a while later, the water in the bowl was blue. I refilled the bowl again. I repeated this three times before it was finally clean.
When I put the in cartridge in, the stroke was as bold as a strip of thin blue ribbon.
I made my first entry in over a year.

3 comments:

  1. There is nothing that makes you want to write more than a beautiful pen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yay for proper pen and paper!! Enjoy!! Take care
    x

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also have used my blog as a journal. I put it into book form at the end of the year. But a blog, because of it's openness to the whole outside world, doesn't always contain the deepest thoughts and feelings and personal goings on that can be written in a journal. I found a journal that I started when I was 12 and kept it up into my teen years. I blogged about the "conversation" I had with that young girl...I was given a beautiful journal last year but haven't written in it...yet. You've inspired me to start! Thanks!

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