It’s now spring. Thank. Goodness. Celebration of the Vernal Equinox included pizza from farm shop (artichoke hearts and goats’ cheese) and their special ice cream (banana bread and tiramisu). For reasons I am not quite sure about as I finish this post for loading on to the site I’m wearing Victoria Beckham 21:50 Reverie. Maybe because this vanilla is not really sweet and cutesy and still feels appropriate when it’s warmer but not quite warm yet.
Anyway, we at the Posse really do riff off of each other – even when we don’t know we’re doing it.
Recently, Musette wrote about handwriting/handwritten stuff. At the time she posted I was already deep in this post about journaling (when did that concept become a verb?). I had no idea that she’d be writing said post – clearly there’s some sort of cosmic thing we all have going.
Anyway, writing in a journal. Apparently, this has become a big thing to be discussed on the interweb. I am so behind things it isn’t funny.
My short answer to my own question above is ‘no’. I love notebooks and fancy pens but I use them to write things to myself: reminders, blog ideas, descriptions of something I see, remembrances of things other people say, notes that I took my medications particularly when I’m not at home, notes on thing I like with prices and shop of origin, descriptions of clothing/shoes I like on other people, trees or plants I like but need to google for names.
I also tape things into these notebooks: flowers which then dry and I find years later, tickets to exhibitions I really loved, mass transit tickets from places where I’ve used a new system (or revisited an old one), pieces of maps.
I did try writing a journal as a young woman but it never took. This piecemeal approach suits me, however.
I have different size books sitting around the house which had/have different purposes. An example is the beige rather large soft-covered book with a horizontal strap to keep it closed. That came with me to New York when my father was hospitalised around seven years ago.
It contained (contains) all the telephone numbers I needed in the US (my uncle, my brother, local NYC friends, the lawyer for my father’s estate, FedEx, the hospital social worker dealing with my father’s situation). It also contained all my notes both before and after he died – the doctors I spoke with and what they said; the utilities etc I needed to pay including how to do that from the UK while the estate made its way through the process; the estate agent who ended up seeing through the apartment sale; the tradespeople who did work on said apartment; the company that cleared his apartment and then shipped the few things I wanted to me.
Once the estate was in process the notebook contained amounts for who/what needed to be paid.
Otherwise, I currently have a soft-cover red Rhodia notebook which travelled with me last autumn. It contains (as noted above) my notations that I took my medications, notes about places I wanted to visit and tickets etc for places I did go, restaurant names, shop names, streets in various cities that I wanted to remember, the ice cream shop in Berlin that was so so good. The lunch place I landed in Berlin after a morning Cold War walking tour during which it rained and rained. The people at the café were lovely to me: the wet through middle aged woman carrying too much stuff who couldn’t figure out how to scan the menu. The food was very good. The red Rhodia also contained the list of want-to-buy for Paris.
The other book is a small hard covered grass green Rhodia notebook that goes in the handbag. That’s the everyday write down what I need to remember for an outing to town, which fragrances I tried with notes, comments on what I see when having a coffee/tea, names of items I see I want to remember, etc.
I use rollerball pens when I’m out; it’s a fountain pen, which currently contains olive green ink, when I’m home. I am crap with fountain pens (rubbing my writing etc) which is why this one lives at home.
Anyway, see, I don’t journal in the orthodox way but I do like note taking, commentating, drawing badly, having some place I can paste/tape things I want to keep.
What about you? Do you ‘journal’? What sort of book do you use, pen, etc? Are you regular about things? Do you use a journal for dreams?
Pics: Pexels and mine
I am lucky if I remember to write a grocery list!
Though I live all the accouterments attached to the concept of journaling ( pens, notebooks, etc)
I usually always have a small sketchbook with ne, though
Your Rhodia are gorgeous!!!
I really do like Rhodes notebooks. Good structure, good colours. I do grocery lists as if I shop blind or hungry what comes home can be very expensive.
I don’t journal, never have. I definitely went through a fountain/fancy pen era but that was just for the pleasure of writing with them, even if it was a check for a utility bill. That farm shop pizza sounds incredible.
Interestingly or maybe strangely there are loads of fancy pizza trucks here but I prefer what the farm shop offers. Usually quite imaginative. I get liking to use nice pens — it elevates mundane tasks.
I’m not a journal keeper, but I AM a note taker! It’s a habit that carried over from years of school note taking, followed by years of taking minutes of meetings in formal office settings. So I can’t seem to attend any gathering now without pulling out my Vera Bradley spiral notebook, a nice roller ball or ball point pen, and taking notes. Cinnamon, I like your Journaling. Those journals are lovely. And your pens are cool. I have a Waterman fountain pen that uses ink cartridges. Its barrel looks like malachite. So lux! But I don’t usually write with it nowadays.
Waterman pens are so beautiful. Might you use it if you had a special ink colour? Like magenta? Good lord, meeting minutes. Do you know shorthand?
I use to buy the ink cartridges in teal, violet, and cobalt blue. They were vibrant and beautiful, but also finicky. I never learned shorthand, but my mother knew it. It’s a mystery to me!
Hey Cinnamon
The closest I ever can’t to journal writing was during the APJ days I’d do a weekly run down of perfumes, places and people. It was very satisfying to write but I’ve had zero interest since.
Portia xx
I do wonder if one needs to want a really interior focus for whatever reason to journal. or to be a writer and use that to focus the self.
I can’t really call it “journaling” but I do keep notepads and pens handy to jot things down, the only issue is that I then forget which notepad I wrote it down on. But it’s a good back up for remembering and it’s kind of fun to say, find one in the winter coat (yes, I know, California) that I’d put away.
I guess I have all the notebooks close to hand. so, like you, if I think of something it gets jotted down. I think if anyone else looked in my books they’d be flummoxed and bored witless.
I tried the journaling thing a long time ago when everyone seemed to be saying how wonderful it was. It didn’t do anything for me. I do write notes on many things as reminders – such as reading this blog and getting ideas for perfumes or body washes or that great Salux. Then I put everything in folders on my laptop.
No, it didn’t do anything for me either. I do love how the cookery author Nigel Slater uses his ‘journals’ — reminders of things he loved on journeys, playing around with new recipes, lists for different requirements (first list for xmas months in advance), what to buy for the garden. I guess that’s what I emulate.
Back in the day it was called keeping a diary. As a teen I kept a diary. Largely writing about my black cocker spaniel, Pippa. My longing for a pony. Who I fancied, who I thought fancied me. All the things an adolescent horsey girl, who’s just discovering boys think about. My supposed best friend stole it & showed it to one of the boys mentioned. Teenage girls are bitches.
Since then? Only for professional purposes, where writing up learning experiences as a journal is required as evidence of learning for registration.
Reminders etc I keep on my iPhone.
Yes, keeping a diary. I hope the friend who showed it to the boy got her just desserts. I do keep notes on the notes function on my phone, iPad and computer which are all synced. But that feels less satisfying than using various books.
There’s a show here called “The People’s Court” that has been on forever and is now helmed by Miami-based Judge Marilyn Milian (sort of like if Judge Judy was played by Gloria Estefan). He mantra is “say it, forget it: write it, regret it.” I have gone with that most of my life.