Let's discuss my addiction to journals.
You know when you enter a bookstore there's always that section of stationery and writing implements? Writing pads, journals, pocket books, etc. in every color of the rainbow and in a mass of textures. Now, we've already established that the color/texture cocktail is a dangerous one for me, so you can imagine the heart pounding that goes on as I approach.
There is actual salivating. Automatically, my hand goes out. I have to touch them. Fuzzy velvet one. Smooth leather one. Bristly embroidered one. Alas, upon opening them, more often than not, the attraction ends. There's something about the paper. The paper needs to be just right. It needs to feel smooth to the touch, inviting the drag of the pen. Blue ink, medium ballpoint, of course. For some reason, many of these journals are made with a rough paper. I just don't get it. Don't they know their market? Am I the only one that cringes at the thought of dragging a pen over a rough surface?
Still, ogling can be enjoyed. I know that there are people who scour the gossip magazines and drool over the latest hunk or diva. Here's so-and-so at the opening to that one movie... here's whatzerface at the hottest club in town. People have their crushes and they get their fix rifling through the pages of some glossy magazine before putting it back on the rack and sighing. This is how I see my time at the journal section. Not to mention stationery stores or any trinket store that has journals or writing sets or that general kind of thing. I get to look at all the pretty colors and hold them as I walk up and down the aisle. I run my fingers over the covers and open to pages and discover the innards.
I carry as many as I can. For that brief moment, they are mine. We are becoming one. They will infuse me with all their colors and textures and then I can walk away refueled.
I always hate walking away. Why can't I have this one? It's so pretty. Look how lovely the pages are. Imagine what that would feel like under my pen.
The reason I can't have any is because I've already treated myself to more than I'm actually putting to use. Over the years, I've found some real treasures and simply HAD to have them. So now, I insist that I will go through all of them and use them before I buy any more.
There's the predictable one with DaVinci's Vitruvian Man on the cover. I mean really, isn't that just a stock requirement in the artist's toolbox? In my defense, however, it's the smallest one I own, and it fits right in my purse with no problem, making it quite handy. Then there's the huge one the size of a photo album that a friend gave me because I was visiting him in another town and had made the mistake of not packing my own journal. He hoisted this monster on me due to a moment of panic on my part, but as soon as I returned home, it just became this elephant of a book. It will likely find its way to the Goodwill pile. The red one is due to another moment of urgency. I shan't go into specifics but the fact is I looked for the least expensive thing on the shelf, knowing fully well that I had journals at home which hosted a tidal wave of guilty soul-poking, but I was in a bind, dammit, and needed to write. The orange one is nothing to write home about, as it is just your basic paperback, but it was purchased in Florence and was the receptacle for many a thought and narration as I traveled up and down Italy alone, the way I like it.
My favorite one, right now, is a yellow one. It's not much to look at, quite low-key. Even has the spiral binding versus the stringed kind. But when I touched this little gem, I knew I was taking it home with me. The pages are a sort of cross between paper and plastic. It's impossible to describe because I've never come across anything like it before. There's actually a plushy quality to the paper so that combined with the smoothness, it sort of cradles the pen and the drag just slips right along. It makes medium point come out like dark point. I'm using it sparingly, because I'm going to miss it when it's gone.
They are loved, these little items of joy. They are admired for their aesthetic qualities as well as for their textural ones. They are appreciated for the task that they allow me to perform in a bind. I can't imagine ever finding myself without a number of them in my possession. They are comforting and elating and encouraging and frustrating, but they are necessary.
If they weren't, they wouldn't fit in my hands so naturally, now, would they?
I understand the draw of the fancy, artistic journal. But when I buy one, I look for the one that's always there because few people buy it. It's not much to look at - it looks like a small, plain hardcover book with no title on the spine. Well, it might simply say "Journal" and nothing else. It's much like a farmer. He may not win any beauty contests. His clothes are plain, his manner is plain and he's plain. But he's made to work. It's what he does and he's not ashamed of it. He may not stand out, but you can count on him.
ReplyDeleteYou open the cover and are immediately met good, solid plain paper, a little thicker than most. It might have lines and it might not. But it, too, is solid.
The thing is, I take it home and set it on my dresser. Occasionally, you might catch me holding it, flipping through the pages as if I were reading. But all I'm doing is admiring. And wondering if I have anything worthy to put in it. And if I do, will my left-handed writing mess it up in a disrespectful way? You see, I never learned that trick that most southpaws learn of curling their arm around the top of the page, curving their wrist to pull the pen across the page as a right-hander does. I push my pen across the page, smudging my handwriting and covering the side of my hand with ink.
But eventually - and it'll be a few weeks or longer - I'll feel the journal's invitation and I know I am disrespecting it anyway by not using it for what it's made. So, finally and humbly, I pick it up and try to give it my best. I try to honor my journal with giving it something worth reading - even if it's only me that will reread it.
On the other hand, I understand the purpose of that rougher paper. I have a notebook of that kind of paper. And when I feel like getting out my charcoal pencils, I draw on it. My drawings are pathetic - you'll never see them in a gallery, or even on the wall of a coffee shop. I have to work on them much harder than someone with talent, but I'm proud of them anyway. I think those journals with the rough paper are geared toward those who keep on them not only a pen, but those charcoal pencils.
Still, I understand your love of journals and you put it in a way I don't think I could have. Thank you for reminding me what gems these little books-in-waiting are. Mine has sat unused for entirely too long.
Coz,
ReplyDeleteI thought about writing about what happens once I bring one of these treasures home, but never got around to it. The way you describe it, though, is a carbon copy of what happens for me as well! We are a silly lot, are we not?
As for the rough paper, I stand by my original preference for smooth. I know what you mean about the option to draw, and you're right, the rough makes it a better canvas. But I've only once ever bought a journal for drawing. All the rest have been for writing. I insist that they have lines. Part of the beauty is seeing the flow of the words, of my writing, uniformly crossing the page like rivers of letters. I like the aesthetic aspect of it being neat.
So you're a lefty with a dirty paw? In college, with all the studio classes, you soon learn to wear jeans and old t-shirts, for all the different kinds of media you will use. It was in the basic drawing and the life drawing classes that my hand always came out of it with the side blackened. I'm right handed, but that makes no difference when working with charcoal on a large canvas. You're going to get dirty. The same thing happened in drafting classes, and rendering classes, though those involved colors. I always wore the dirty paw like a badge of honor. A testament to what I did today, to what I'm dedicating my time to. To my self-identity.
On the rare occasion that my writing produces the same dirty paw, I'm secretly thrilled. It means I bonded with my words even in a tangible way. Tres cool!