365 True Things: 37/Writing

Joan Didion said, "Keepers of private notebooks are a different
breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."

I beg to differ.

I have kept a personal journal. Usually when things were off-kilter: sitting down and writing through confusion or pain somehow helped. These thoughts were meant for my eyes alone. In that sense they were "private notebooks" (though I tend to compose on the keyboard). And true, I may have been writing out of anxiety or unhappiness. That did not make me an anxious malcontent, however. A puzzled seeker, more like.

These days, I don't journal. Not exactly. After all, this blog is sort of a journal, a way of making sense, of discovering. I also write an occasional "15"—at least fifteen minutes (usually more like an hour) of whatever, which may be more or less coherent or may be a random spilling of thoughts: no rules, beyond "at least fifteen minutes"—which I share with my sister-in-law, also a writer. Each of these is potentially for eyes other than my own, which of course puts limits on what I will say. I'm not going to reveal all my secrets.

So what are all the journals pictured here? They're a mishmash: daily lists; gratitude journals; scribblings on poetic form or fiction technique; notes from Wilderness First Responder training or photography workshops; expressions looked up while struggling with a Norwegian or German book; research. In sum, they're my writers journals: a wealth of information, odd thoughts, attempts, words. Possibilities.

These writings all look outward—they're about learning, doing, expressing. Which isn't a bad thing. But what about my inner self? It feels like it's been quite some time since I've looked deeply inside. Do I even remember how?

Didion again: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

I would like to get better at that: finding out what I'm thinking; what I want and what I fear. I may explore that here, but it seems more suited to a 15. Or—a private notebook. Uncensored.

What about you? How do you find out what you're thinking?