What a Year Brings

 

 “Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out." -Kurt Cobain, Journals

Thirteen. 

Thirteen full journals from 2014. All made and filled by me. (The only one missing is the one that is in the third photo. It is living at Kept Creations in Whitman, MA until my classes there next weekend.)

"On Keeping a Journal. Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts — like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.

The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather — in many cases — offers an alternative to it."  -Susan Sontag December 31st entry in her journal, Reborn.

I share these with you to encourage you. If I can do it, so can you. A full year to you may mean one full completed journal of 30 pages or a journal a month or a journal every two weeks. It is all good. To hold them in your hands and look back over the year, a year full of you having lived is a very good thing. Something to celebrate.

“People who keep journals have life twice.” -Jessamyn West