found a little piece of heaven

I’m sure I’ve confessed my love of journals here. Utilitarian canvas-covered sketchbooks and beautifully embossed covers with sewn-in creamy pages make me want to write brilliant things in them.

Then I get clammy hands and a terrible case of writer’s anxiety when I fear I won’t be brilliant…just…mediocre, and I don’t want to ruin the beautiful pristine pages with my ramblings. Because of this silly notion, I’ve amassed a stack of lovely (and some utilitarian) journals, sitting pretty and empty on my book shelf, longing to fulfill their purpose and house all kinds of thoughts.

Big thoughts. Small thoughts. Complicated and incomplete thoughts. Stream of consciousness and careful thoughts.

And yes, every once in a while, maybe something brilliant.

Something changed a couple of years ago and I started writing in these beautiful books. I didn’t think it would happen, but I’ve filled them all. I just opened the last empty one and filled the first page. Heaven.

slackery, writing, and new journals

I have no excuse for not updating here, especially since you have no doubt busted me wasting time on Facebook or Twitter. Somehow, though, 140 characters seems easier to accomplish than a blog post, at least in these past months of an insanely distracting and busy time at work. It doesn’t help when I remember that I have three blog posts sitting in draft mode, two of which have been rendered obsolete.

But it’s all good…or as they say, it all comes out in the wash. So maybe I’m back for a spell — maybe I’ll just hit-and-run post and continue wih a pronounced period of slackery.

Actually, I suspect things are going to be much improved now, and we’ll leave it at that.

I have been doing a lot of writing, just not here. I filled up my last journal a little sooner than I thought, and took a little outing in search of a new model.

Some people obsess over manuals and blue books and whatever else they use to buy new cars — I spend endless hours caressing journals in bookstores. I know, it’s a little weird.

Anyway, I finally settled on one from the monastery…. I used a plain black Picadilly lined journal for too many years to count (the …um…black one in the picture). Lately, though, I’ve found that size, while convenient for slipping into my bag, a bit tiresome on my hand. Yes, this is the part where I sound all old and stuff and whine about arthritis, wah wah wah. So I went a little bit larger, and unlined, so I don’t feel all cramped about writing small, either (dare I mention my aging eyes? no? good idea).

Here’s a little comparison, with the old journal on top of the new:

But the best part is that it is filled with pages and pages of cream-colored thick paper screaming to have me fill it up with stuff:

Heaven.

And if that isn’t enough, every so often it has a little inspirational quote on the bottom. Usually, I think it’s a cheesy distraction in a journal, but this one is full of saints’ ponderings, so who am I to pooh-pooh St. Teresa of Avila, who happens to have today’s entry:

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