BLANK BOOKS

FALLING UP
White mountain velvet night
Following moon-silver owl flight
Looking into the well of Self...
I fall into the heavens.
Linda McGeary

I have an obsession!

Blank books.

I've been journaling since I was a teen.

I started a book journal in my twenties. (title, author, date and rating, sometimes comments about the story, and quotes if I really liked it.)

In my thirties I started dream journaling. I have at least twenty years worth of dreams.

Sometimes I look at that box of old journals, and my stack of new ones waiting to share my life, and wonder why I do it. Is it a sense, or touch of immortality it gives? That something of me, my mind, my heart, will remain. That maybe my sons will find them interesting someday. Or not. Maybe they will never read them, even as I have not finished reading all of my Mother's.

What is the value of a journal then?

I can get lost in an old one, rereading, seeing where I've grown or not, and maybe where I need to focus some time and attention in silence and deep thought. The cascade of memories, and where they find place in my life now.

There is joy, sorrow, pain and healing in those pages. Humor too. Poetry, story ideas, and sketches. But really, are they or will they ever be of value to anyone other than myself?

Maybe a dream researcher might find those journals interesting, if that's not a thing of the past by the time I return to the stars.

I spent a number of years reading volumes of dream books. I've always been interested in dreams. When I was a child and had a dream, my Mom and I would talk about it. What did it mean, or an image she would encourage me to draw, or make a poem or story out of it. I loved those shared times. She would tell me her dreams too, sometime they were dreams that would make me see she was worried about me in some way. They would make me think.

I got so into dreams and the meaning of dreams and the value of them, that I spent a couple of years doing dream workshops to help others understand their own dreams. Helping people find the tools to interpret their own dreams and use them in personal healing, or in creative endeavors. It was great fun for a time.

Then life just got to busy to do the kind of journaling I used to do. My theater job, working 55-60 hours a week, more or less broke me of the consistency I used to have when I was younger. I'm more hit and miss now.

That's O.K. Who has time for everything?

But the obsession remains. I discovered it's the blank books I crave. All clean white pages, or cream color, or some other pastel hue.

And the covers!

I love shinny, sparkly things, just like the crow in the Secrets of Nhim. I think I have about ten ahead of myself, and I know that's not the end of it. If I go into a book store and they sell them, I'll buy one. Something different than any that I have.

It's crazy! But I just love blank books.

The day after I couldn't make my mind work backwards to catch the threads of detail for the post I wanted to do, I went into my store to attend a writer's group that meets there after hours, two times a month, and there on the desk was a beautiful little leather bound black book. Blank book! Never been used.

I thought how marvelous, just what I need. It will be my Blog Notes book, small enough to put in my purse.

Now, just to find time to note that fleeting thought, or simmering image.