For the Love of Gifted Journals

It was not too long ago, when festive spirits were high, and those of turkeys everywhere were low, that I was gifted a journal. A hardback leather journal in pine green, that would allow me to give myself, more freely, to the gift that is journalling.

From my recent consistency in my journalling practice, I feel I can give shape to my rules of engagement. Or in other, mostly laterally associated, words, why I have fallen in love with journalling.

To journal is almost a gentle apprenticeship in the mental arts of the Jedi. It, at least for me, consists of suspending a sometimes intense feeling midair, while you trace or uncover the footprints, yours and others’, that brought it to life.

But strangely enough, it is still a speaking – or writing – out that involves an audience of one, or none. There is a great safety in being able to find a space alone between the covers of a journal to lay down your emotions and fears, and allow them rest, for however long.

Journals do not by any means permit only structural and rational logic when it comes to feelings and emotions. They are, however, a set of endless opportunities to settle whirling mental, even spiritual, chaos into the calmer stasis of words, letters, and sparing punctuation.