Keeping a Notebook

Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, my parents got a divorce. I wrote something so scary and so angry in my diary that I had to scratch it out with a pen and blot it out with thick lines of marker. Of course, I still remember what I wrote. Those were hard and thorny emotions that were necessary for me to express.

During trying times, it’s more important than ever to “keep in touch” with our selves. Writing in a notebook is one way to keep in touch with your feelings and thoughts. It can be a storage place for worries, or a place to say all the angry things you might want to scream at the top of your lungs. A notebook can be a good friend.

A notebook doesn’t mind if you write in black crayon or red sharpie. The paper won’t care if your pencil point presses so hard, it leaves a channel. It won’t even be bothered if you even poke a hole or two. Your notebook won’t miss a few pages if you feel like ripping them out, balling them up and throwing them across the room. Your notebook is a forgiving friend. It welcomes you no matter what you are wearing, no matter how angry or sad or scared or silly you feel.

In our current scary, confusing, unusual time, you can use your notebook to organize your thoughts, record your observations, rant, obsess, ponder and wonder.

Don’t know what to write? Start with this:

Date Weather How are you feeling? What is something you learned about yourself today? What is something you learned about the world?

Write what you know. Write what you don’t know. Write what you wish you knew. Write about everything. There are no rules.

THINK - How might you use a notebook? How does paper/writing function in your life?

TALK – Has there every been a time when you enjoyed writing? Ask your family or friends to share a time when they found comfort in the page.

WRITE – Write the forbidden. The scary. The mean.

DO – Re-purpose. Search your home for paper – old school notebooks, flyers and notices, stationary you never use, the inside of a pizza box, the back of an envelope. How does it feel to write on things that you were going to throw out anyway? Does it feel different to write in a beautiful bound journal? What feels better to you?

BE – Do you have a favorite pen? What do you like about it? What feels good? Why? If you don’t have a favorite pen, take a few pens for a test drive.

Reading recommendation!

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.

Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires

with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.

Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way

for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review

each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments

of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.

Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound

of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,

where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all

the things you did and could have done. Remember

treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes

pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

GirlGroup InfoMarch 25, 2020