I loved this, Mary. It reminded me of something Sandra Cisneros said at a conference: "When I was younger, I did a lot of ranting. But ranting is uncomposted writing. No one wants to accept the coffee grounds and the banana peels, but they will pick up the flower. We have to learn to write with love, until the light shines through."
This comment has reminded me of something I wrote about the way memoir differs from journalling, actually! Thank you! I see the journal as a site of chaos. We bring our messy humanity to the page and leave feeling, hopefully, 'tidied up'. Memoir is wrestling beauty from this chaos. We need both ime and tide (like the composting Mary described) to transform one to the other.
I love this. Some of these comments really have me thinking that sometimes people do want to read about banana peels and coffee grinds but maybe in a way that the light shines through.
As someone with a giant box of “compost” in her basement, this post really resonates with me! I aspire to revisit these old musings in search of useful memoir material. I started rereading a few pages once. Realized I wasn’t quite ready to look in that mirror and pushed the pile of goo back under the stairs in my basement where it waits patiently. Your encouraging words spark curiosity and wonder. Can I revisit the ugliness and find some beauty in the garbage?
I have a 5 year line a day journal that I've been keeping ever since my friend gifted one to me almost 10 years ago. I like that the space limits what I can record, and I usually try to write the things I'm grateful for that day in it before I go to bed. I love being able to read the lines above and see what I was doing the years before. Most of my entries are about the delicious meals my husband makes. I also have a journal that I only take when I travel that has room for longer entries and sketches. It reminds me to slow down and savor the moment I'm in when I'm sketching. I love your compost metaphor.
I also keep track of gratitude and try to stop and notice it daily. My gratitude is often for my husband’s cooking too, so cheers to that. I think I might want to start doing some sketching as a way to really savor things like my garden.
Another insightful piece. I hope you get to follow your Joshua Tree even when not on vacation.
My significant other and I just raked leaves yesterday and I am so grateful if what this tree gives to me: first hope with its spring leaves, next shade, then a colorful show followed by food for my garden.
This wonder sits beside my grief and fear as I read the newspaper and there is a full story on the fires that ravaged our neighbors'homes last summer. I also grieve each day for all of the people who have and are dying in current wars that seem to have no endgame.
Your Substack is a small drinks of water each week.
I am planting new cuttings with worm dirt this week. Journals ans worms-hope.
Oh- small drinks of water. Thank you for that gift of words. I think vacation helps me follow my Joshua tree better when I’m back in the real world. I think you are speaking powerfully to wonder and how it is so important in our lives.
I've kept journals my whole life, off an on, as a way to understand myself and the world, a friend to talk to in tough times, a way to practice writing, a way to get ideas out of my head so they'll just be quiet for a time. I have always assumed that at some point, someone would read my journals. I read many journals of other writers growing up and I think I had in my mind that I'd publish mine someday. They are no Anais Nin .... this isn't something I still think I'll do ... but I don't plan on discarding them so presumably upon my demise they will exist and I imagine will be read. It feels really weird, actually, to consider that they might not be, even though they aren't written for anyone but me.
I love this and that you and I see our journals taking different paths. I think it speaks so much to the vulnerability of the experience. I also love how you describe your journal as a friend.
Love all of this. I’ve been journaling since I was 10 and journaling daily for 9 or 10 years (can’t remember exactly when I started that), and I’ve definitely told my husband they should be burned upon my death because no one else eeeever needs to read what’s in there. 🤣
I’m so glad it resonated, Sarah. Thanks for reading. As I work through my memoir, I’m grateful for the nuggets of details my journals hold, but yes, I think they are more like a compost that needs to be turned over a few times - the smell is similar too ;)
My journaling these days are mostly brain dumps, sometimes containing a lot of anger that I need out of my brain. Once upon a time I wrote actual diaries but I channeled most of that into blogging, through for certain none of the more sensitive things I would put on paper instead. I have a hard time with journaling in any meaningful way. Especially for writing. I tend to draft in my head for a few days and then jump right in. But I do refer to my blog often to dig up old stories and things I’ve written down.
I’m always haunted by TTW’s story about how her mother left her journals for her and they were all blank.
I feel this. I'm with you, when I die, I hope someone burns mine. I am completely honest in them, because they're for me, and it is how I process, but re-reading them hurts!!
It totally does Rebecca. Sometimes I write in my journal in prep for my Substack, and my writing is different because I'm thinking about audience. I think we need safe spaces where we don't have to worry about audience. Thanks for reading. Also, I'm noticing your Substack is called The Sunday Morning Snuggle, which is an adorable name. I hope to check it out.
Goodness, I loved this! So so so true: "My journal is no skinny mirror. It is the hotel mirror, the one lit by fluorescent light that makes you look older and more tired than you are, the one that makes you ask, “Do I really look like this?”"
Oh, I have been thinking and feeling about this! I'm working on creating and updating instructions for the nephew who will manage my affairs after I die. (N.B. this is an "important, not urgent" project right now; I'm fine, I just want it done.) What should I tell him about the two full-size archive boxes STUFFED with old journals and notebooks that are tucked into one of my cupboards? Do I want anyone else to read them? No, I don't. Can I bring myself to dispose of them and save my beloved nephew at least one chore? No, I can't. While I'm alive they're parts of my living self, the past-self that walked me into the present; I can't let go of them until my soul lets go of the rest of my body. Sorry, Matt. ❤️
I so relate to this. I came SOOO close to burning my high school/college journals a few years ago because all it is is page after page after page of boy drama. Like that's all I wrote about. How embarrassing. Also, I've been married for 15 years with 4 kids do I really want my kids to read this? But I'm glad I didn't burn them. For day of the dead this year I read through my grandpa's life history and my great-grandma's. And the silly little dramas and fears and insecurities- THAT'S what I want to read! Not a timeline, not a highlight reel, the stuff they were embarrassed by, their selfish thoughts- the real human stuff. That's what I wish I had record of.
Yup! You’ve got me thinking. Sometimes there is so much to be learned in those old journals so I agree with not getting rid of them,but I’m still not keen on the idea of anyone reading them.
Another thing: my sketchbooks were completely private for decades. To selected trustworthy people I would show a few pages. Sometimes someone would ask me to share a page publicly. Sometimes one of my art galleries would ask me to show my sketches towards a painting. Basically over time I got nudged by increments into sharing my sketchbooks in public.
Thank you so much for the kind mention of my newsletter and sketchbooks! I appreciate you!!
I do reread my past sketchbooks. I think of them as a how-to-be-me handbook or guidebook.
I too have sections of journals and sketchbooks that I'm embarrassed by. I have others that when I see them Im impressed thinking "wow, did I really do that, feel that, draw that..?" .... still more time passes and sometimes that part that had embarrassed me no longer feels so embarrassing. The same is true of the part I had liked...perhaps I'm less impressed. Time is such a potent mixer ingredient in the cocktails of the creative life.
You are most welcome. Thanks for being here and sharing more of your process. I concur completely about time. I love going back and finding my writing better than I thought but the opposite happens too.
In my last move, I recycled almost all of my remaining journals. I started keeping a daily journal in 1971. Most pages contain my weight that day. Some had notes re meeting with my married lover. Gack. Glad to be rid of those! Most of my notebooks and journals contain bits of writing I was working on at the time and have since finished. There are some sketches. I have a few left, all of which have a combination of to do lists, mindmaps for whatever I was writing at the time, some prompt writing from a writing class I used to attend. Lately I've been trying once again to actually learn how to draw, and I find it's mostly repetition/practice that helps me get better. Same with writing, really. I find handwriting helpful, particularly mindmapping, to get me where I need to get to at the computer. Congratulations on your pages of your forthcoming memoir, Mary!
I’m so impressed that you recycled them. I am really bad at letting go, like really bad, so I think going this would be good for me. I agree with you about repetition and mind mapping.
I loved this, Mary. It reminded me of something Sandra Cisneros said at a conference: "When I was younger, I did a lot of ranting. But ranting is uncomposted writing. No one wants to accept the coffee grounds and the banana peels, but they will pick up the flower. We have to learn to write with love, until the light shines through."
This comment has reminded me of something I wrote about the way memoir differs from journalling, actually! Thank you! I see the journal as a site of chaos. We bring our messy humanity to the page and leave feeling, hopefully, 'tidied up'. Memoir is wrestling beauty from this chaos. We need both ime and tide (like the composting Mary described) to transform one to the other.
Love all of this- time, tide, wrestling the beauty...Thank you!
I love this. Some of these comments really have me thinking that sometimes people do want to read about banana peels and coffee grinds but maybe in a way that the light shines through.
Yes! I love a good coffee or banana peel reference in a poem or prose piece about the ordinary and extraordinary.
As someone with a giant box of “compost” in her basement, this post really resonates with me! I aspire to revisit these old musings in search of useful memoir material. I started rereading a few pages once. Realized I wasn’t quite ready to look in that mirror and pushed the pile of goo back under the stairs in my basement where it waits patiently. Your encouraging words spark curiosity and wonder. Can I revisit the ugliness and find some beauty in the garbage?
I bet you can!
I have a 5 year line a day journal that I've been keeping ever since my friend gifted one to me almost 10 years ago. I like that the space limits what I can record, and I usually try to write the things I'm grateful for that day in it before I go to bed. I love being able to read the lines above and see what I was doing the years before. Most of my entries are about the delicious meals my husband makes. I also have a journal that I only take when I travel that has room for longer entries and sketches. It reminds me to slow down and savor the moment I'm in when I'm sketching. I love your compost metaphor.
I also keep track of gratitude and try to stop and notice it daily. My gratitude is often for my husband’s cooking too, so cheers to that. I think I might want to start doing some sketching as a way to really savor things like my garden.
Another insightful piece. I hope you get to follow your Joshua Tree even when not on vacation.
My significant other and I just raked leaves yesterday and I am so grateful if what this tree gives to me: first hope with its spring leaves, next shade, then a colorful show followed by food for my garden.
This wonder sits beside my grief and fear as I read the newspaper and there is a full story on the fires that ravaged our neighbors'homes last summer. I also grieve each day for all of the people who have and are dying in current wars that seem to have no endgame.
Your Substack is a small drinks of water each week.
I am planting new cuttings with worm dirt this week. Journals ans worms-hope.
Oh- small drinks of water. Thank you for that gift of words. I think vacation helps me follow my Joshua tree better when I’m back in the real world. I think you are speaking powerfully to wonder and how it is so important in our lives.
I've kept journals my whole life, off an on, as a way to understand myself and the world, a friend to talk to in tough times, a way to practice writing, a way to get ideas out of my head so they'll just be quiet for a time. I have always assumed that at some point, someone would read my journals. I read many journals of other writers growing up and I think I had in my mind that I'd publish mine someday. They are no Anais Nin .... this isn't something I still think I'll do ... but I don't plan on discarding them so presumably upon my demise they will exist and I imagine will be read. It feels really weird, actually, to consider that they might not be, even though they aren't written for anyone but me.
I love this and that you and I see our journals taking different paths. I think it speaks so much to the vulnerability of the experience. I also love how you describe your journal as a friend.
This is so beautifully, expressed and inspiring. Thank you! There’s a lot to ponder here.
Love all of this. I’ve been journaling since I was 10 and journaling daily for 9 or 10 years (can’t remember exactly when I started that), and I’ve definitely told my husband they should be burned upon my death because no one else eeeever needs to read what’s in there. 🤣
I’m so glad it resonated, Sarah. Thanks for reading. As I work through my memoir, I’m grateful for the nuggets of details my journals hold, but yes, I think they are more like a compost that needs to be turned over a few times - the smell is similar too ;)
My journaling these days are mostly brain dumps, sometimes containing a lot of anger that I need out of my brain. Once upon a time I wrote actual diaries but I channeled most of that into blogging, through for certain none of the more sensitive things I would put on paper instead. I have a hard time with journaling in any meaningful way. Especially for writing. I tend to draft in my head for a few days and then jump right in. But I do refer to my blog often to dig up old stories and things I’ve written down.
I’m always haunted by TTW’s story about how her mother left her journals for her and they were all blank.
You use metaphors beautifully.
Thank you!
I feel this. I'm with you, when I die, I hope someone burns mine. I am completely honest in them, because they're for me, and it is how I process, but re-reading them hurts!!
It totally does Rebecca. Sometimes I write in my journal in prep for my Substack, and my writing is different because I'm thinking about audience. I think we need safe spaces where we don't have to worry about audience. Thanks for reading. Also, I'm noticing your Substack is called The Sunday Morning Snuggle, which is an adorable name. I hope to check it out.
Goodness, I loved this! So so so true: "My journal is no skinny mirror. It is the hotel mirror, the one lit by fluorescent light that makes you look older and more tired than you are, the one that makes you ask, “Do I really look like this?”"
Thanks for reading Megan. I’m glad it resonated with you.
Oh, I have been thinking and feeling about this! I'm working on creating and updating instructions for the nephew who will manage my affairs after I die. (N.B. this is an "important, not urgent" project right now; I'm fine, I just want it done.) What should I tell him about the two full-size archive boxes STUFFED with old journals and notebooks that are tucked into one of my cupboards? Do I want anyone else to read them? No, I don't. Can I bring myself to dispose of them and save my beloved nephew at least one chore? No, I can't. While I'm alive they're parts of my living self, the past-self that walked me into the present; I can't let go of them until my soul lets go of the rest of my body. Sorry, Matt. ❤️
I feel so seen by this comment! 😊
I so relate to this. I came SOOO close to burning my high school/college journals a few years ago because all it is is page after page after page of boy drama. Like that's all I wrote about. How embarrassing. Also, I've been married for 15 years with 4 kids do I really want my kids to read this? But I'm glad I didn't burn them. For day of the dead this year I read through my grandpa's life history and my great-grandma's. And the silly little dramas and fears and insecurities- THAT'S what I want to read! Not a timeline, not a highlight reel, the stuff they were embarrassed by, their selfish thoughts- the real human stuff. That's what I wish I had record of.
Yup! You’ve got me thinking. Sometimes there is so much to be learned in those old journals so I agree with not getting rid of them,but I’m still not keen on the idea of anyone reading them.
Another thing: my sketchbooks were completely private for decades. To selected trustworthy people I would show a few pages. Sometimes someone would ask me to share a page publicly. Sometimes one of my art galleries would ask me to show my sketches towards a painting. Basically over time I got nudged by increments into sharing my sketchbooks in public.
I’m so glad you were nudged.
💚💚💚💚💚
Thank you so much for the kind mention of my newsletter and sketchbooks! I appreciate you!!
I do reread my past sketchbooks. I think of them as a how-to-be-me handbook or guidebook.
I too have sections of journals and sketchbooks that I'm embarrassed by. I have others that when I see them Im impressed thinking "wow, did I really do that, feel that, draw that..?" .... still more time passes and sometimes that part that had embarrassed me no longer feels so embarrassing. The same is true of the part I had liked...perhaps I'm less impressed. Time is such a potent mixer ingredient in the cocktails of the creative life.
Thank you again for the mention 💚💚💚💚💚
You are most welcome. Thanks for being here and sharing more of your process. I concur completely about time. I love going back and finding my writing better than I thought but the opposite happens too.
So true!!! 💚💚💚💚
In my last move, I recycled almost all of my remaining journals. I started keeping a daily journal in 1971. Most pages contain my weight that day. Some had notes re meeting with my married lover. Gack. Glad to be rid of those! Most of my notebooks and journals contain bits of writing I was working on at the time and have since finished. There are some sketches. I have a few left, all of which have a combination of to do lists, mindmaps for whatever I was writing at the time, some prompt writing from a writing class I used to attend. Lately I've been trying once again to actually learn how to draw, and I find it's mostly repetition/practice that helps me get better. Same with writing, really. I find handwriting helpful, particularly mindmapping, to get me where I need to get to at the computer. Congratulations on your pages of your forthcoming memoir, Mary!
I’m so impressed that you recycled them. I am really bad at letting go, like really bad, so I think going this would be good for me. I agree with you about repetition and mind mapping.
Well, I held onto most of them for about forty years. So...
So there’s hope for me 🤗
Oh, there's always hope, I have to believe that, or I'd give up entirely. ha.