Journals

 

Back in my days at Burns Elementary in Detroit, diaries were popular with some of my classmates.  They were pretty, in pastel colors, and pretty script “My Diary” embossed on the cover that also featured a clasp and lock.  It was a schoolgirl thing that was popular for a few years.  I am not sure, if the fad passed or has just passed under my radar.

Young girls bought or were given these diaires in which they were supposed to write every day.   The idea was to document the activities of their days and, presumably because of the lock, whatever secret thoughts my ten-year-old female classmates may have had.  I saw the girls on occasion with their diaries in class, sharing something they may have entered with a girlfriend, but I never saw anyone actually writing in one.  I am not sure how much any of the girls I know may have written.  My guess is very few made a daily routine of it and, thus, even fewer ever filled up an entire diary book.

The idea of a diary, however, intrigued me.  Writing my thoughts every day, secret or otherwise.  I could jot down what happened to me each day, I could explore and refine my aspirations and goals, I could document my burgeoning philosophy and theology, I could write stories and verse, I could draw, or I could write music.  Yes, I could.  But, there were several issues the least of which was that I couldn’t bring myself to carry around and write in one of those froo-froo girly diaries.

Sure, I could have used a notebook, one of those sewn fake granite, black and white, composition books or a spiral bound job that were becoming the rage.  Heck, I could have used pieces of loose-leaf paper and collect them in a binder.  But, I was also ten, and I thought you had to write a diary in a diary and it had to have a clasp and lock.

These were the least of the impediments.  While I loved thinking and dreaming, I did not really enjoy writing.  I found it to be quite cumbersome and tedious.  I struggle to write a page when it was assigned in school.  While I had an aspiration to keep a diary, but I knew I would never keep it up.  I would be lucky to write a few sentences a day and even then I wouldn’t have lasted a week.

Furthermore, I have some vague concept of what philosophy and theology are today.  Back then, forget about it.  I couldn’t draw very well then and I haven’t improved a lick since then.

But I liked the idea.  I also liked the idea of being a writer. 

Fast forward a few years to my early twenties.  I was browsing around a bookstore, maybe a Waldenbooks.  I was at the bargain table and saw a green book in a leather, well leatherette, hard cover.  It was embossed with a nice gold design but no title.  I picked it up and thumbed through it; it was blank.  Oh my, it was a diary.  Yes, finally a diary that appealed to me.  I bought it with great expectations.  I wrote in it that night… and never again.  It may still be among my things somewhere in the house.

Over the years, these blank books became much more popular and abundant in the bookstores.  They were diaries.  But they were renamed, reborn, and repurposed as “journals.”  I guess the marketers wanted to appeal to everyone and not just grade school girls.  They exist in every size and style.  They are lined or blank and now even gridded or dotted.  They have white or off-white pages.  The paper may be of a fine stock, lately to support the resurgence of fountain pens.  Others come in a rougher, recycled, paper to appeal to the ecologically minded.  Some are designed more for drawing.  The covers are may be adorned with butterflies or dragonflies, perhaps with a design invoking the something spiritual from any and every corner of the world.  They could be expensive or found on the bargain shelves and tables. 

These products proliferated as corporate wonks started toting around pads, notebooks, and finally, nicer bound journals to meetings to take notes and to make to-do lists and action plans.  More recently, the Moleskin brand has become popular, plain black, lined pages 5 x 8.25 inches.  These field books are handy to carry, durable, high quality, and fit perfectly into the transition from hard-shell briefcases

to backpacks.  I have carried a Moleskin or equivalent for over ten years for work.  I use about one a year.  This past year I have switched to even nicer German brand, Leuchttrum, with better paper, more pages, and numbered pages and index pages.

I have bought many and have been gifted others journal notebooks.  I have tried every size and ilk for my more serious writing.  But, when I started my journaling in earnest in 2002, it was on good old 8.5 x 11 pads which I stored in ACCO binders.  I gravitated to spiral notebooks, and by 2010, entirely to iPad and PC.

But that original attraction to diaries has never left me.  When I see a handsome and inviting journal in a bookstore or online, I have an urge to buy and start anew to write even more profound daily entries. 

Here is one I saw recently on line for $24. I wanted to buy it… but didn’t and continue my journaling in MS Work on my MacBook Air.  I hope I haven’t traded off profound for convenience.