July Artsy Essay

For this month's essay, Judith has this to say.

Tell us about lessons you have learned, insights you have had, people you have met who have changed your life in some way. Share the reason(s) that you journal, and what this outlet has come to mean in your life. Take some time to really consider the rich tapestry of human experience here and share with us your heart songs. Be funny, serious, contemplative............. the door is open to all forms of expression.

Why I Keep a Journal

Oh Judith, a heady topic.  How long have I got?  All the time in the world?  Well, grab a cushion and settle in.

The reasons I write are many, but the purpose is singular.  I write in my journal to reach out and connect with another like-minded individual.

One person. 

One person-at-a-time...because it is time.

Writing has always been something I did...beyond self-expression, beyond sharing and sending messages, writing is more than a communication tool.  It is more like an exercise, a way I can test myself, and stretch what I know into the outer boundaries of what I don't know.

It is about discovering...

                     and uncovering...                   my comfort zone...

                                                 while waking and shaking things up a bit...                       so I don't fall back asleep.

I don't ever want to go back to sleep.

Writing keeps my mind alert, and my psyche highly tuned.  I learned that many years ago.  But I stopped writing and I took a nap.  A very long nap.  Then someone woke me up and I spent the next five years gathering lost memories. But, I got tired and fell asleep, again.  People told me I couldn't write.  Then I lost my job.  So I went to college.  Where I had to write...a lot.

But I didn't mind.

In college I rediscovered writing and I loved the energy I felt when I was writing.  It was those 4 o'clock in the morning sitting at the computer with my cup of coffee while everyone else was asleep pouring over fifteen books to prove a thesis or disprove a theory.  I was writing.  I LOVED IT!  Wow!  I forgot what it was like.  That yearning for more, one more sentance, one more idea, one more point.  All those ideas running amok in my mind, and seeing them in black and white but in someone else's words!  Yes!  I am not alone in my thinking!  Other people think this way, too!  After I graduated, I stopped writing...creatively.  Sure, there were business letters and such, but, that's not the same.  That's zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I missed the energy.  And I felt sleepy again.

That's when the AOL CDs started showing up in my mailbox.  All the time.  Every week the postal person delivered two or three...sometimes five, to my home.  And I'd toss them in the garbage.  AOL?  Thanks, but no thanks.  Then after about six months of this (Knock...knock, is there anybody home?  HELLO?), as I held a newly delivered AOL 9.0 CD in my hand, I paused.  What's going on here?  Maybe there's a reason why these CDs keep coming, out of the blue.  No circular file this time.  Straight into my room, and onto my computer.  Two days later, I found AOL Journals.  Hmmmm.  Interesting.  People writing.  Lots of people writing.  Opining.  Sharing.  Provoking.  Laughing.  Crying.  Joking.  Stories.  Prose.  Poetry.  Photographs.

Hey!  I can do that!

That was last October.  And I haven't stopped writing since.  When I write, I am open.  And closed.  Not so much closed now as I was, oh say, a year ago.  In just the past nine months, I have grown in leaps and bounds, and in ways I had never experienced...until now.

It's rewarding.

There's a simple delight I find in writing something that another person can connect to.   I like taking a thought, and launching it off my pad and into the world.  Let it bounce around a bit, see how far it goes, and where it lands...if it lands.   Heaven forbid it should go pffffffft or someone shoot it down, but it's possible.  I know not everyone who reads my words will consider them to be relevant.  So?  They are, after all, my thoughts and if another person wants to just walk on by, then that is okay by me.  That person has someplace else to be at this time.  Carry on, I say.

As for me, I found a place that encourages people to write.  Any time.  Any day.  There is no curfew, but there is TOS, so we do have parameters to stay within.  My journal offers me a place, for more than my thoughts and pictures.  Journals connect...ideas to people...people to ideas and people to people.  I write in my journal to connect to life.

Oh, and, since installing AOL on my computer last October, I have only received two AOL CDs in the mail.  In nine months time.  Only two CDs.

Message received and noted.