A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.
Tom Stoppard
Since I was a little girl, I've been a dreamer and a writer. As a child in Argentina (photo of Comodoro Rivadavia) , I would buy "diarios" and "cuadernos" (diaries and notebooks) that I would fill with pictures, poems, quotes and thoughts. I would scour the library for hours, looking for the perfect book to read and then read for hours, writing in my journal as I went. By 12, I had a compilation of quotes from Winston Churchill to Sylvia Plath to Janis Joplin. I may have only been 9,10, 11 or 12 but I understood and found power in their words.
A happy memory for me is sitting by myself, quiet with my office and/or art supplies, a stack of books, music in the background and a notebook or journal. I have tons of these things that I can't bring myself to throw out... there's too much great information in them... and many times more space to write as I can't seem to hold on to anything as tangible as an actual notebook. But they never really leave me. I'll find them, with pages left to write on, in the oddest places.
A happy memory for me is sitting by myself, quiet with my office and/or art supplies, a stack of books, music in the background and a notebook or journal. I have tons of these things that I can't bring myself to throw out... there's too much great information in them... and many times more space to write as I can't seem to hold on to anything as tangible as an actual notebook. But they never really leave me. I'll find them, with pages left to write on, in the oddest places.
So today I've been working on my custom "hamper for the downstairs bath" project (hopefully tomorrow's blog!) and while looking for a wrench in the basement, I ran across one of my favorite journals, cover and quotes by Anne Taintor that I started in 2008. As I leafed through the pages, an index card fell out.
On it were a set of rules or mottoes I'd written for myself as follows:
I love how beautiful I am to myself sometimes. I wish I could remember to have more patience. I'm still working on some of the same goals I was in 2009 when I wrote this but I'm proud that I've accomplished many of them.
I believe Miss Lucy Larcom describes the experience of journaling better than I can when she says,
On it were a set of rules or mottoes I'd written for myself as follows:
- Stay focused on your goal; then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th goal.
- Follow through.
- Be grateful.
- Be kind.
- Be accepting.
- Be strong.
- Be a good friend and lover.
- Stay healthy--no colds!
I love how beautiful I am to myself sometimes. I wish I could remember to have more patience. I'm still working on some of the same goals I was in 2009 when I wrote this but I'm proud that I've accomplished many of them.
I believe Miss Lucy Larcom describes the experience of journaling better than I can when she says,
"A journal of the 'subjective' kind I have always thought foolish, as nurturing a morbid self -consciousness in the writer; and yet, alone so much as I am, it is well to have some sort of a ventilator from the interior".
She echoes my heart.
