Yesterday I loaded up my car with things I would need for the next couple of days and headed south. I took a few days off to dedicate some serious time to writing. I packed my bags--I didn't need to take too much--and headed out. Once at my friend's house I jumped right in and wrote a couple of thousand words. They flowed. I love that feeling when I'm writing, because that doesn't happen everyday. At least, it doesn't happen to me that often.
I was feeling good. I was in a zone. I took a break in the afternoon and dug through my bag thinking about where I was going to sleep so I could set things up.
That's when it hit me.
I forgot my journal.
That hasn't happened in a long time.
I've blogged about keeping a daily journal before. I've not written masterpieces in those pages. In fact, most of it is pretty boring. I learned a long time ago that the purpose is to write, to explain the events of the day, and sometimes, how I felt about those things. not to write masterpieces everyday.
And I've been writing about those things every single day (except for maybe one or two days in January, 1987...) since January 25, 1985. People do different things. I write a journal entry every night before I go to bed.
When I discovered I had forgotten my journal I wasn't too upset. I usually forget something when I leave home for more than a day. Luckily, when it comes to journals, I use binders where I can add pages. Just fold a regular 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of paper in half and fill up that half with words. And because I'm at a writing retreat, my friend was kind enough to print off a couple of pages of lines for me so I could continue chronicling my life.
When I get back, I'll pull out my three-hold punch and include the events of these past few days. I'll put them in between pages already describing previously experienced days and the blank pages of days yet to come. And one day, perhaps years down the road, I may pull the particular journal covering this time in my life and notice several pages that don't quite fit, them having not been cut with all the other pages in the journal.
And I'll remember the time I went to my friend's house to write.
And I'll remember it was the time I forgot to bring my journal along.
And I'll remember how great it was to have time just to write.
After all, isn't that what a journal is for anyway?
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