writing life

it's been a lovely day...I've spent the whole day reading and writing in a new journal. Now I feel like writing where someone other than myself can read, but where to start? How much to say?

I like journals. Influenced by the Diary of Anne Frank, I began keeping a journal in the form of letters to an imaginary friend named Margie when I was 12 or 13 and kept writing Marie on sheets of binder paper until I was 21.

The summer I was twenty-one, and working for a wealthy family in Greenwich, Connecticut as an au pair, I bought a green, bound journal at a New York City stationer that seemed more fitting to the more "serious" thoughts I wished to inscribe. My second entry in that first bound journal was made while sitting in the garden at the Museum of Modern Art, where I marveled at Rodin's Balzac and Picasso's Goat and even more wonderful, the cut-leaf birch trees.

I filled twenty-five bound journals over the next thirty five years. Then I discovered blogging and journal got lost while I explored this new medium and delighted in having an audience for my thoughts. Recently, however, I've begun to miss the physical feel of writing, of putting ink on a clean, smooth page. The last bound journal I purchased was awkward to use, being thick, with small pages. So yesterday, I once again 7 1/2 inch wide by 10 1/4 inch high, and 3/4 inch thick bound journal, with creamy smooth pages and light gray lines. I've already filled fifteen pages with dense black script, pouring out thoughts and ideas, not quite yet ready to make it to the computer screen to be shared with others.

The photo of Picasso's Goat in the MoMA sculpture garden was taken in December 1969 (photographers name not given) and can be found on the Bearne Gallery Website.