The Right Journal

“Every time we go to the book store, you buy a journal or two. Are you like a collector of journals? How many empty journals do you have anyway?” Gleek asked me. We were on our way home from the bookstore. She’d earned a trip out to buy something fun and while she was there I decided to see if there was something I could use to replace my almost-full journal. I opened my mouth to protest, but the answer to that last question is at least six. Pretty sure most people don’t have six empty journals waiting for words. I don’t collect journals, not really. There is no joy in just purchasing them, nor in having lots of them. It is just that once I start a journal, I have to live with it for the next year or more. This means it has to be one I like, and it is common for me to bring a journal home and realize it is not quite what I want.

So I’m not really a collector, more a picky journal keeper. For a long time I just bought the same brown or black journals because the size and texture were right. But lately I’ve wanted something prettier. I found it in a book from Peter Pauper Press, but I don’t want to get the same book again. I want something different, but still pretty. Which leaves me looking at journals that are too big, too small, to thick, too expensive, too puffy, not pretty, too plain… etc. This time I think I’ve settled on buying a book that is labeled as a refill for fancy leather journals. The cover of it is blank, which means I could do something pretty with it.

I find it amusing that Gleek is the only one of my family who has noticed my accumulation of journals, since she is also a lover of notebooks. None of hers are empty. They all have bits of stories, journal entries, sketches, and other snatches of writing in them. Almost none of them are full. Where I pick a single notebook and stick with it until it is full, Gleek flits between books as strikes her fancy. Which is fine. I like having someone who is happy to spend twenty minutes looking at journals with me.