journal

i am preoccupied with the search for the perfect journal; it takes place semi-annually and the criteria always change. so rather than write about how i was propositioned on friday by the person i've had a crush on for a year, or how i initially turned it down and have since changed my mind but haven't had a chance to say so, or about last night and how i cried through a speaker who lost his brother in iraq, or my frustration with my poetry assignment and poetry itself, or how jeana and i had the same conversation last night mana and i have been having for 4 years now, or how i tried to be normal and succeeded with the help of a corgi, or even my imaginary conversation with my imaginary mexican host family, i'd like to set forth my criteria.

my journals are mostly spiral-bound or composition notebooks. i like to be able to fold them over and write on - concentrate on - only one page. i often write lying down or hunched over so the ability to make a journal compact is important. the binding must, then, be flexible enough to allow this but durable enough to last a long time - i've had my current journal since october of '04 and this is actually a quick turnaround for me. i beat my journals up and take them everywhere - they are part security blanket. i've had large ones and smallish ones. sometimes the large ones feel ridiculous but the small ones are too playful. they must be lined. i find so many beautiful books that have blank pages and i see no point in buying a journal i'll just have to line myself - there's no point. i hate the ones with traditional book-binding that don't lay flat or bend. i must love my journal, or at least not find it an eyesore - we'll be spending a lot of time together. not anything too flashy - i want the words to do the work themselves and i don't want to answer a lot of questions about the notebook on my bed/in my hands/poking out of my tote bag. my current, almost-spent one is oversize, spiral-bound and black and has a strange little window cut in the front cover that i don't love, that i dashed some verse in that was silly enough to throw off any would-be readers. my journal is inviolate. i consider it an extension of the square inches between my ears and treat invasions with accordant violence.

i hate it when people buy journals for me, and i hate hating that, because they are always so well-intentioned. the only journal bought for me i didn't loathe is my pink love journal, and even that i can't seem to use. i can't have "love" on my cover because too many times my writing is not about love, too many times would that word influence my writing or incite me to greater drama, melacholy, or anger. my covers tend to be blank, but in the past i've done collages on them, and two of my journals (two favorites, actually) had prints on the cover - one was a matchbox, la luna, the other a mermaid with la sirena on it. but just one word? how could i stand it? like the journals with the women on them: she had not yet decided whether to use her power for good or for evil. how could you write with that cheeky mocking slogan facing you? every day? ugh. no, i need a journal that has not too much personality. that's what fueled my comp book trend, for years. it's still my default. the composition notebook is deceptive. it reminds too many people of elementary school, or saved by the bell, or something. they would leave it alone and not ask. it wasn't intimidating. that's another thing, when a journal is too beautiful - too lovely to use. that's why one beautiful journal, i believe it was recycled cardboard, became my substitute yearbook - actually, i've used several beautiful notebooks this way, and now that i think about it i may do something similar with the love book - make it a scrap book of sorts, and contain there things i think represent love, and have my friends write testimonies to love, and for my love letters, and if there's any space left i could end the book with my wedding vows or eulogy, whichever comes first.

as i'm sure you see, i could go on. i love journals. i love books. i love words. i love the blank page. sometimes i'll just open to a fresh page and look at it, and get lost in thought, and move on to something else. there are times i've dated a page and not written anything. i love my journals. they are physical proof that i exist, that i've felt other things other times, that i've grown. how i love them.

two completely different things:
one, i've found my favorite simile for death. it's the end of a li-young lee poem called "eating together." he's talking about his father:
". . . Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him
without any travelers, and lonely for no one."

two: i can never remember which comes first, K or L.