GRACE TAKES NOTES
Today I Cracked Open Journal Nº25
It is an auspicious occasion, always
The new journal, with a soft pebbly burgundy cover, has been sitting on a shelf near my fireplace for almost a month. I do not open a new journal until the final page in the current one is completed. Then, I date it and put it in the bookcase.
This is Nº25. I started keeping a journal when I was 10 years old and I will be 35 next year. It is a compendium of oddball-looking notebooks. The first were lined and had covers that look like QR codes. There are hard-cover journals that look like library books, branded by marketing from scientific companies. They were given to my granddad at his research lab.
I pass them often but do not think about them until I am ready to crack open a new one. Sometimes, hopes and dreams are best remembered as they were written, not relived.
I buy beautiful journals now. Every word we write is sacred, no matter where we write it. I learn something from each type of writing I do, each place I publish, or simply tuck the words away for another day.
People write about writing a lot here. They tangle writing with metrics and readers and protocols and opinions they believe are facts.