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In my shared house, one evening, there were two identical blond heads, plus my own, bent over at our kitchen table, journalling. A male housemate came in, made a remark, and I quipped, “It’s journal night in Canada.” One of the blonds, one night, got into a sexual activity with me and later told me she gleefully wrote about it. I smiled: For her secret journal, that’s OK.
At the time, the 1970’s, there was only one book on journalling. I know, because I bought it and the author, a woman, had checked the card catalogue and no other such books existed. She discovered, as I told my housemates, “There are only two types of journal writers: Those who try and give up, and the compulsives.”
If journals are kept more by women, maybe it’s because they can express feelings, and try to figure things out. If journals are kept more by the young, maybe it’s because they find their harsh lives sweet and sentimental, and they scribe as a souvenir.
In my youth if I was feeling too blue I would write too much… but in due course I learned that such over-long sessions lacked value. To quote the Bible: “Can a man by taking thought add one cubit to his stature?” No. But writing in moderation may lead to action that changes your stature in the community. In my old age I write with detached amusement at my silly life. Like in “Who Moved My Cheese?” where a man’s return to sanity, and cheese, is mixed with his laughter.
I write “under a semi-permeable membrane.” Bad stuff stays out.
For the past few weeks my journal’s purpose has been, as Doctor Who said sternly, “To hold me to the mark!” Every morning I write my gentle plan; every evening I see how I did—I so dreadfully fear being a blob on a couch. On a road trip I note the times to each oasis, and how long I tarried. During the day, I might write down timings for “pencil sharpening,” before starting something. Such writing suits me—but probably not other diarists!
Every two page spread, as in a “Simplicity Journal,” includes a top left corner for something good, lesson learned, funny, touched my heart… So I won’t look back on life, as days bleed together and, as in Ian Brown said (from memory) in his memoir book Sixty, “I’ve forgotten two decades, but I don’t know which two.”
Ann Frank wrote to “Kitty”: Reminding me that journals are a salve for loneliness. Note to self: At a party don’t say you are “researching loneliness,” as people’s eyes instantly flicker away.
I once knew, on a horrible ongoing basis, abusive people. They could be spectres standing in my kitchen, right now, as a “committee in my head.” No, better to write “Hello Kitty,” nice and cozy. As if my little life matters.
I journal with a friendly interest in our shared world because we all matter.
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Sean Crawford
you can practice journalling by commenting here
November
2023
Journal Update: By mid-December I am no longer recording any times or proof of productivity. Strange. Maybe I am feeling secure about not being lazy and not having writers block.
Blog note: I did indeed tell my friend that I wrote (last week) of her. But… Maybe for reading there are only the nonreaders and the compulsives. I have heard that university graduates may say, at the start of their four month summer, “Great, now I don’t have to read anything!”… My friend is a university graduate, but I doubt she read my piece. So I don’t take my blog too seriously. Same with my journal.
A journal was lost along with a friend’s stolen car. She was aghast about the journal. I wouldn’t worry, I said, because I think that not only are criminals too inconsiderate and too unsympathetic to care about someone’s life, they don’t care to read notebooks or anything, either.
