Words from the Shore – How to Start a Journal

Have you ever thought about keeping a journal?

I’m sometimes asked why I keep a journal. For me it’s all about memories… My mum’s memory started to fade in 2014. That time was hard, really hard, and is what led me to buy a book with a pretty cover and start writing in it daily. Not one for detail, my mum was always pretty vague about Cornish childhood milestones but something changed when she was no longer able to recall quite significant things or things that had just happened. So, I guess I started to keep a diary journal to record bits of everyday life so that if my memory starts to fade there would still be a record of my simple daily life for my family to know their story. It became a little part of daily life that I could control when so much seemed to be out of control.  Journalling, in whatever format it takes, can be powerful.

Dart Swim Journal

The benefits of journalling are different for different people, for some it’s journalling for anxiety or journalling for mental health and for others it is simply a way of recording time. For me, journalling is about carving out a gentle time each day to quietly write. It started as a simple record of the day’s events – very factual, no emotion, not much more than listed notes. I guess I was thinking that I wanted my journals to be there for any family members to read without them feeling they were slipping into a secret world that maybe they shouldn’t be a part of. Over time though, other things crept in, moments of emotion, sketches, an odd ticket or receipt for something memorable and lists. Oh the lists… lists of things I wanted to do, packing lists for holidays so that I could refer back to them when packing again, check off lists of things to settle me when life throws you those curveballs.

Coming Home Journal

Journalling became a ritual. A last thing to do before I went to sleep, or when I first woke in the morning. Sometimes it was just  a scribbled note and sometimes that scribble fell off the page as I fell asleep writing with the pen still in my hand. Sometimes days would be blank and that was ok, I’d just pick up again when the time was right. They would remain the lost days. I have always loved writing, so journalling has never become a chore and in fact it is quite the opposite as sometimes when I open my book, ready to write, I feel myself breathe out deeply as if I know that now is the time just for me and my thoughts.

Egret and Avocet Journals

I have many journals now, as you can probably imagine. Fourteen years has involved a lot of writing and a lot of memories. They live in a box together, each with their unique cover and each with their own chapter of my life within their pages. As I draw to the final pages of one, I make sure that a new one is ready to keep the story flowing. I often end up in conversations with people about journalling, so this month I have had some journals printed with some of my favourite paintings on the covers. I am so pleased with them and the calm covers and blank pages inside will hopefully inspire both writing and sketching. They can be found on my website.

Journals from the Estuary Collection

If you feel the pull to give journalling a go, maybe buy a special book, pick up a pen and just write a few words. You don’t have to plan what you write, just let the words find themselves as you think over your day or find a place for your thoughts on paper. Thinking about gratitude and little glimmers of happiness that have appeared in your day can be a good starting point. The most precious things really are the little things. Those things that otherwise would slip silently into the depths of time, seen as having little significance, and yet if I read back through an entry it is these  little things that truly draw the picture of that moment in time and bring it back to  me in full colour – the funny thing that was said; the power of a kind word; the feel of a hand slipping into yours or maybe the expression on a pet’s face. Through these words, I can step back into moments in my life and feel as if I am there once again and that is the gift.

Peace Journal

We all face hard times and great losses in life and I think journalling, along with writing poetry and painting, has somehow helped me to navigate those incredibly difficult times of grief. Sometimes our hardest times need to be revisited from a distance, and it is then you sense the layers of your life’s history embedding themselves in a way that in those times of rawness it was just not possible to do. On the anniversary of the deaths of my parents, I have found myself re-reading the days leading up to their funerals. I feel my love for them through the words that I just about managed to tearfully write at the time. The love showed itself in the final clothes I chose for them to wear. The eulogies I wrote for them, the flowers and greenery I picked from childhood haunts and created into offerings of love for them. Reading these words and re-living these memories is how I have healed and that is why I journal. It’s all about the memories…

You can see available journals here 

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