Category Archives: journal

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Real Reason You Need to Keep a Journal

THIS MORNING on NPR I heard bits of a radio documentary featuring voices of Florida residents recorded as Hurricane Andrew passed over. That storm was 20 years ago.

Today is a sunny, calm day here, but driving down River Road, I became increasingly terrified by the endless sound of the wind in the background as the snippets of 911 calls rolled on.

The voices captured in those moments were THAT powerful.

All this adds to my strong belief in the importance of keeping a journal in the midst of life’s storms, while they are happening, not waiting until they pass to reflect and capture. It will be your strongest and truest voice.

* * *

MAYBE you’ll never do anything with it.
Maybe you will.
You don’t need to know the answer now.
For now, just write.
Take 5 minutes at the end of each day and write the salient thoughts as well as you can.

You might be the only person with the guts to write about the experience, to face the words, to acknowledge what’s happening and how you feel. Someone needs to give a voice to that. You don’t know why yet. Let it be that way.

* * *

You might also like:

Why it’s important to capture the SMALL BEANS of life.

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Real Reason Most Journals are Abandoned

20120822-180111.jpg

I REACH UP to the high shelf
containing blank books received as gifts
and choose one

Because you just never know.

* * *

PEOPLE WHO put pen to paper
to capture a story
whose ending they know
aren’t keeping journals,
but drafting a manuscript
(and there’s no shame in that).

But true journals are captured as lived,
the writer not knowing
ahead of time
how the road will bend
and what will lie around the last corner,

having faith
that the capturing is worth it
even if you prefer the words weren’t true
even if you don’t want to face them in black and white
even if you prefer to forget
and it’s “God, help us” all the way.

* * *

THE REAL REASON journals
are started then abandoned
is that the keeper
is frustrated,
trying to steer the contents.

We want the story to really be something else.

Ah, but true journal-keepers
are pioneer ship captains,
trying mainly to navigate the waters and survive,
doing less steering
than holding on for dear life.

And being honest.

Today this happened
and I am frightened beyond belief.

Now we are on to something.

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Small Beans/My CLL Journal

“Lately I have felt overwhelmed by the beans in my life,”
– L.L. Barkat.

IT WAS A FEW DAYS
after his leukemia diagnosis in 2008
that I started it,
my CLL journal -

not about him
but about me
and what was going on with me
because of the diagnosis -

a place to write stuff
that had nowhere else to go.

Such small beans,
what’s going on with me,
the bystander.

Small beans
compared to the one diagnosed,
the one whose calendar
is filling with appointments,
tests,
start of treatment.

Small beans,
but when I had something
too big to carry around
I set it there
in that journal.

This was all born out my belief that there is value in capturing what is happening now, the stuff that sticks, with no idea of why or possible future use, but to just do it. Again, writing is an act of faith.

EMBARRASSED to have it,
the journal,
I kept it tucked away -
unlabeled,
unidentifiable -
pulling it out
to jot something quickly
then quickly putting it away again.

There was nothing in it
that couldn’t be shared,
but the very act
of writing in it,
of thinking
anything
that was happening in my head,
in my life,
deserved a witness
seemed wrong.

A year later
my ODF says,
“I hope you are keeping a journal.”
It’s the first time I admit it outright.
Only then
and only a word,
“Yes.”

* * *

“I AM NOT WRITING,”
I tell myself,
confusing writing with publishing
or the pursuit of it,

because by then
I have stopped
so much of what I used to do -
the querying,
the outlining,
the drafting,
the submitting of manuscripts.

And after a year-and-a-half
I begin to believe
the whisper in my head:
I may never write again,

like a swimmer
claiming he’ll never swim again,
all the while
maintaining a constant stroke,
going back and forth
in the deep end of the pool.

“This is the secret of the prolific writer.
To agree to use small beans and the ingredients at hand.” – L.L. Barkat

Q: What small beans are you holding onto?

___
ODF= oldest and dearest friend
CLL – Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia 


Source: *Rumors of Water by L.L. Barket, T.S. Poetry Press, New York, 2011. I sat last month holding a sleeping newborn and pondering my small beans after reading Chapter 6, “Japanese Beans: Write with What you Have.”