Let’s talk about journals: The ritual of looking back to look forward
by Olga Katsovskiy
There is something magical in the act of pressing the tip of a pen on paper. No matter how busy I’ve been or what’s happening in my life, writing in a journal feels like showing up. It is possibly the only venue where I’m doing something entirely for myself, with no end goal in mind other than to enjoy the process.
Keeping a journal is like tending to a home. It is easy to slip into neglect, postpone chores, run away. Sometimes I go through periods of time without writing. Even then, I keep the journal with me in hopes I’ll want to write again. I like to run my fingers along the spine of the cover, feeling the evident wear and tear of life in the roughness of the leatherette. I like how the paper yellows on the edges, the crop circle coffee stains reminding me of places I’ve been.
Anne Truitt said her poetry was drawn out of her life while her sculptures stood with her and kept her company.[i] My journal keeps me company too. I write creative nonfiction in hindsight, while a journal is a place for the day-to-day where I don't yet know if a moment holds any significance.
A softcover pocket Leuchtturm1917 is my go-to notebook. I have a stash of these blank notebooks and fill one every 3-4 months. Before I move on to starting a new journal, I go through a retirement ritual. It’s always bittersweet to finish a journal, both exciting to start anew but also unsettling to star over. I’m in this journal, and now I’ll need to move into a new one and make it a home again.
The ritual involves skimming the pages in search of something, a sentence, a memory deemed interesting enough to note, something I think might be important. The first two pages are reserved for a table of contents. I note the word or phrase to summarize the entry I’d want to remember, and the page number. Here is an example from a journal I finished in the Spring.
LACMA
Rodeo Drive
Normality without variation is the greatest hell
Personal Archives
Getting Out of Our Own Way
You know a scene is over when you have to get up to the bathroom
Prompt: Beginning, Middle, End
Constraints
The mystery of Amelia Earhart is not how she died but how she lived
Revise towards the weird
Time mellows tragedy
Past Lives
Growing a tree in a slice of banana
How to bring your voice to life
Thankful for my feet, the ground they cover
AI can’t have a sense of place…
A big BIG mistake
Max Richter
Not in the mood to write
If you don’t watch, you’ll miss it
Everything fades, you forget his face
For me the journals serve as archives of memories. Each representing a time and place where I have been. They are now packed away and labeled so that I can retrieve and revisit them at my convenience. Revisiting a journal is a kind of homecoming. This is why I don't like keeping large notebooks where too many former selves stand side by side. I like to put them away and move into a new room I make into a home. Opening a journal becomes an invitation to return to myself again.
[i] Truitt, A. (2013). Daybook: The Journal of An Artist. First Scribner trade paperback edition / Scribner.
