My best friend asked me years ago why I was amassing piles of Moleskine blank books while we were sitting in Barnes and Noble enjoying our coffee and taking stock of our potential purchases. She asked me half-jokingly, half-concerned: “Why do keep doing these journals? Are you writting a book or leaving them behind for someone?”
I was a bit surprised at her question as she sat there with a sizeable stack of books of her own at her side. Why read, I thought to myself. To me, journaling was just one of those things I did like knitting, painting, and playing the cello. So I was a bit defensive when I answered her that it wasn’t intended for anyone; that it was something I did for myself. She accepted that answer and we went along with our normal chit chat.
Years later, I still hear that question as I look at the shelves that house the collection of Moleskines, Project Life albums, Rhodias, and Circa/Arc journals I’ve filled up over the years. There are a lot of possible answers to that question as I confront my hoarded/curated stash of paper, paints, pens, and photographs but the one word that remains constant in my response is WITNESS. I’ve come to see these journals as a testament that I am here, I am living, breathing, feeling, creating. They do not judge, comment, or place value – those “things” are up to me, in my control, which can be empowering when everything around me feels like an imminent disaster.
When I first started a journal practice, I carried my stash of blank books, pencils, pens, paint, glue, scissors, and photos around in a box. If I was outside, everything I needed was there and I would reach in and find it. Soon I was calling it my stress packet as I saw journaling as a way for me to imagine and create a safe place to go to when it felt like the world was crashing down around me. Like a traditional journal, I wrote down “feelings” but I also made WANTED lists:
- I want this
- I don’t want this – meaning I needed to put whatever it was away in its own separate space so it could be dealt with later
When I was having trouble falling sleeping (which led to a growing sense of dread and anxiety each night), I would draw pictures of beds in trees, big fluffy pillows and warm blankets arranged in a nest of branches that would cradle me and gently sway me to sleep to sounds of rustling leaves and creaking limbs. Yeah, I like trees… It was an image I could build upon as I would try to fall asleep – something to drown out the anxieties that were chattering around me.
In addition to WITNESS, a phrase that has emerged over the past few years is CHAOS to ORDER. The WANTED lists may have been a way of trying to organize the chaos of whatever was/is going on around me at the time whether its anxiety over health issues, money, relationships, or work. I have those types of entries where I just completely vent my frustration or write out the bountiful fears I have – so much so that my hands ache from trying to keep up. The beast is unleashed, but its power is altered by pen or brush strokes, distance, and time. Then I take a step back and see what it looks like after this transformation. Sometimes I learn that I can manage the beast, come to terms with it, live with it, or let it go…
Tomorrow Back to the Beat begins the Art Journal & Music Project with the Multicultural Health Institute. The hope is to offer participants the opportunity to find and develop their own version of a stress packet, a toolbox, or arsenal to deal with the stresses of the COVID pandemic.
