I try to be good about never going anywhere without a book to write in and a good pen. I'm not constantly writing, but I do it fairly frequently. And it's always the moment when I have nowhere to write that I feel the frantic need to get something down.
I'll scribble on the cover of my magazine or in the margin of my itinerary, or anywhere I can get the words down. Because it seems once the ideas have swirled around in my head long enough, they just have to come out. And they never come out quite the same way again, so I have to record the moment, the feelings, the sounds.
Last Saturday I was at a party waaay far away and I was the dd. I was doing my best to entertain myself amongst the intoxicated, but after a while I just couldn't stand it. My mind was racing and I needed release. I went searching for paper. Why didn't I bring my journal?? Who knows, I'll never learn. But I found a pad of yellow paper. Yess!!! And a pencil. Sweet!! And I sat at a desk and wrote. I drew lots of attention, which wasn't intentional, I kind of just wanted to disappear for a bit. But I got to write, and my words came flowing out of the end of the pencil like water. Perfect. I felt complete release. It was wonderful.
I feel romanced by pages of blank paper just waiting to be written on and blank books dying to be sketched or scribbled in. I have many, many journals. If ever I am somewhere without my journal and need to write, I buy a new one.
I've tried lots of different journals. For a while I was in love with one I had with a grid printed on the pages. And I have a small-ish one that fits neatly into my purse. I have a bright green one that I used for a while that was beautiful on the outside. I like hard cover better because you don't need a flat surface. And I write more than I sketch so I prefer lined over unlined. Currently my favorite is a "moleskin diary" that has a built in bookmark and an elastic band that raps around and keeps it closed. I like this one because it has a page for every day, predated at the top for the '06 calendar year. It reminds me to write. The blank pages make me feel guilty.
My camera is adding a whole new dimension to this craving I seem to have for documentation. Now I can share that much more of my experiences with the world. I was actually thinking the other day that sometimes I really wish I could record sounds. I definitely need to master actually posting pictures first though. I've been incredibly lax on that since I got my camera. But I finally downloaded the 1200 pictures from all of August on to my computer. Some of them are awesome!!! As soon as I get home I'll post one here...
