Journaling

Journaling, our original blogging, is that lovely way of putting our thoughts on paper, or at least in writing.  Blogs, of course, become more public.  For me it is an open letter to the world. Lately, I haven't been saying much, but I try to keep up with some photography and my thoughts as much as I can.  However, sometimes things are too personal to broadcast, or there are ideas and thoughts that haven't fully matured enough to share. I also must admit that there are times I just miss my own handwriting. So these thoughts go into a book I can carry along with me. I even write letters still! Not often, but I just have to do it to see ink flow across a page and saying what I'm feeling to be read while being held in a hand.  Writing is now a sensual exercise.

After he died I discovered that v had been a journal-er.  He began as a very young man writing his feelings and experiences down in books.  They are now letters to me, re-telling his life to me whenever I want to pick one up and read his words.  Most of the stories are the ones he would tell me when we first met, or when we would sit at the table with a candle and a bottle of wine sharing our life stories with each other.  A gift to me that he started decades before we met and which is now priceless.

For me I write those un-formed thoughts and ideas in order to mold them into a more solid reality.  My current plans and designs become a written blueprint to follow and to remind me when I lose my focus.

I also write letters to v.  They are a comfort when the silence is too much.

A recent article in the New York Times (here) discusses the importance of handwriting. It makes for very interesting reading.  Please take a moment to read it.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)