My friend and neighbor Joyce loaned The Journal Keeper to me for something to read by the lake last week. She couldn’t have known how it would resonate with me on many levels:
It is a non-fiction book about journal-writing. Not necessarily a how-to book, although it is that. Ms. Theroux plucked out a few consecutive years from her journal as an example of the “nuts and bolts” of journal-keeping.
I am an avid journal-keeper. In ten years, I have filled 44 journals. Doing so allows me to celebrate the highs of life even when no one else gives a rat’s behind, and therapeutically eases me through the worst parts.
Besides these obvious facets, Ms. Theroux writes about caring for her elderly mother, although her difficulties were not dementia, which my parent has. Still, many similarities.
She longed for a place to write, to think. She built a writer’s cottage (ahhh….!).
She wrote sage observations, including:
Why do we live in square structures, while everything in nature lives roundly?
Throw a birthday party for yourself where everyone brings something that inspires them
At her age, her entire life revolves around maintenence.I want to add, live a simple life that is easy to maintain. Everything you own needs to be maintained.
Keeping a journal is a way of subduing your thoughts and fears, like pinning butterflies[not that I would do that] so you can examine them more closely.
When the desire is strong enough, talent shows up like a day laborer, to help you achieve your goal.
If I am doing my part to use my talents and lead a meaningful life the universe will play ball with me, and if it doesn’t it’s not my fault.
Mark Twain had disastrous business sense. He chased after wealth, which wrecked him and his family. Had he simply stayed at home and written, he would have been solvent throughout his life.
Only people with time on their hands see clearly.
What I need is some poetry to let me rub the moments between my fingers and release the scent.
Now my life no longer revolves around things I cannot control.
I am fed by the companionable quiet of the early morning. Work, it says. Draw closer. The way is prepared for you.
