That First Page

At the end of June, before I went on my trip to Rhode Island and Vermont, I completed the last pages of a journal. I was so eager to start a new one, I had even pasted some pages together and filled some space with obviously rushed doodles and writing, just to get to that new book I’d pasted beautiful hydrangea paper into the end covers of, with fresh blank pages, open for spilling the next part of my life.

Fast forward to yesterday - yep, that’s right, thirty five days later – and I had barely touched it. In fact, the only touching of it I’d done was to pack it for my trip north and move it around looking for things in the bag it was in and then unpack it when I got back.

Now it’s not like I didn’t think about it or about things I wanted to write in it. It’s just I was shining too much light on that first page. I get in the mindset that the opening remarks need to be special. It’s a ridiculous notion, because I want my journals to be real and full of EVERYTHING, the every day, ordinary, and all the amazing – and not so amazing - happenings in between.

So today I’m going to sit down and put words on that first page, in between the awesome pages I’ve already pasted with clippings of pretty images of things I love and think are beautiful. That’s where I started yesterday, and it felt so good. Just to arrange and paste and have a composition come together to form something gratifying and emotive.

I know that writing will deliver gratification as well. Because expressing myself, even if it’s only to myself – since I’m the only one who reads my journals – is a release and a relief, the comforting kind that will put me in a better place.

My mind sighs just thinking about it.