This is more like a journaling journey than a display of one project, but that’s here too. The notebooks in the drawer are all fairly recent, some of them still being used. I find it very interesting to go back to a previous era and write back to that time from where I am now. 

The huge basket-box if crammed full of journals from decades before I started using the ones in the drawer.  It’s topped with a printer and impossible to move now due to a small flood in the storage room which made it necessary to move all the stored stuff into spaces in this multi-purpose family room.

I started keeping “diaries" when I was about 12. Writing was important for me given all the reasons mentioned in this class. I wrote words, never any drawings. Words became my profession in a variety of ways as an adult from free-lance writing to jobs in PR work to teaching English. I am still in love with words because they have served me so well. 

Now my projects are getting more varied, and that’s what I really want to share. I’ve been gifted journals. 

This one was given to me on my 70th birthday by my granddaughter who is now almost 14. I am using that journal to write memories to her. I tuck in little drawings she made and her first handwriting and tiny gifts she presented to me like some fall leaves I laminated with her gift note. I share family heritage stories and stories about watching the night sky for Sputnik and what it felt like to live through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, Kennedy’s assassination and the Viet Nam War…. Topics vary, but some day she may find it to be a treasure….

Here’s one from my youngest daughter who knows how much I love turtles. I am writing to her and about her and myself. I have my own archive of saved memories in my own journals to refer to, and that’s a great reason to start writing.

This is one I just found that I made,.. I had forgotten about it but was delighted to see the stenciled image I added to the front. Now, I am capable of integrating so much more into what I write about. My sketchbooks are completely separate works although I now may add more small tid-bits like childhood notes I find and tuck into the books I plan to give.

My own new book is being inspired by a published volume I bought ages ago and read for jotting notes and also for inspirations. Those little notes I added to the book are such gifts to discover now, to recall what life was like back when…. So many little notes now who spur me to do more reflection and to learn more about who I was then and who I am now. 

There are plenty of inexpensive books I’ve bought along the journey and some get used for a while then tucked away while I write elsewhere. They can spark inspiration with a topic or idea when I feel blank.  All this focus on writing is a thing I do, and I am not saying it is something everyone should do, but supporting what was discussed in this class. I don’t have one new project to show, but a lifetime exhibit of the value of keeping a journal.

And I will admit that my writing comes in bursts, not particularly a daily habit, but definitely a habit, and you can see I value it and prize what’s burst forth now and then over my lifetime.

Judy