Journalling

I have kept a journal since 11th grade. I had an excellent English teacher in high school, her name was Dixie Dellinger. She encouraged us to write a little something at the beginning of her class. My entries were often something along the lines of 'I had cereal for breakfast, I hope it doesn't rain much because I am going skateboarding after school', really deep and meaningful stuff. It did get better though as I wrote more and more. I realized that no one else would probably read this stuff, and that I could really get out what I was feeling, what I wanted, what was troubling me, or making me most happy. Of course being a teenager it was a lot of angst and worry and I am sure if I read some of it now I'd laugh. I never go back and read any of my journals. I still have them all, boxed up in my dad's attic and some more recent ones here in our attic. I journalled all through college, it was a particularly hard time for me, I didn't know what I wanted to do and I was faking it and quite sad most of those years. In my mid twenties I worked through Julia Cameron's The Artist Way. She encouraged writing 3 pages everyday. This was no problem for me. It was actually my favorite part. When Sarah and I met it was cool to find out that she too was a journal keeper. We would both wake up have a cup of tea and write for half and hour or so each morning. I still write everyday, not always 3 pages but at least a little something. I find it helps me to get things out of my head and onto the page, often my problems don't seem so life threating once they are out of the fantasy world in my imagination and made real on paper. These days I am also trying to incorporate some drawing into my journalling. Thanks to Danny Gregory and others like him that I have discovered in the past year this has put a new aspect into my journalling. My favorite journals have always been sketch pads, blank pages that I can scrawl out big angry words, or neat little soldiers of letters and ideas on the page. I like to use a pen, not pencil. (although I like a pencil for most everything else). Right now I am using Faber-Castell PITT artists pen, S or M point and my journal of choice is a Moleskine (the medium sized ones) These choices have been made due to the new drawing aspects. My older journals were often 8 1/2 by 11 Mead spiral bound sketch books.
Anyhow I just thought I share a little of this today as this blog is a journal of sorts for me, one I am willing to share. I would like the content to be a little more interesting at times, but I am fairly shy by nature and often insecure in expressing my opinions. However I hope you'll stick around and see what comes up from time to time. Have a good day!