Confession

This is not about confession as in "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...", but the kind of writing that allows for the expression of emotions--even the ones we keep hidden from just about everyone (including ourselves).

I am perpetually fascinated by the masks people wear. Some people are distant. Some people are smart. Some people are slackers or lovers or garbage collectors. Most of us wear masks even when in the arms of the most intimate company.

We do our best to "keep up appearances"--to maintain our facade through the daily routine. But sometimes we crack. Sometimes the mask slips and we are on full display in our rage and fear and sadness and hope and love. We can be glorious. Even if only for a moment.

Occasionally, we allow these slips to be channeled into a written format. It can be as horrific as a slap in the face. It can be easy and small. But it makes us real. It gives us shape--even long after we are gone.


Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
PostSecret
The Secret Postcards
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists


Dear XYZ--

We've lived separated lives over years, centuries, eons...who can tell? In the too short moment crossing I...(insert phrase of your choice here). Did you know you still live under my skin? I never imagined this would be so wrenching.

Words take too long.

Moon Report: 80% of full. Waning gibbous.

thick as pea soup

Moon: waning crescent. 4% full.

You know, I have always heard (and used) the phrase "thick as pea soup". However, I should say I am completely ignorant of pea soup in general--never had the stuff. Is it chowdery and filled with thickeners like corn starch and heavy creams? Is it just overloaded with peas and possibly ham chunks? These are things about which I am unaware.

I should mention I am NOT the cook in the family. (But I do make killer oatmeal rasin cookies!)

Back to the pea soup: we are surrounded with thick fog. It is 10:30ish and about 45 degrees out--and we've got about six inches of snow on the ground. Warm air+cold ground=uber fog. I couldn't even see ten feet in front of my car on the back roads...it wasn't much better in streetlamped areas either.

I adore fog (as long as I don't have to drive in it). It curls and wheedles around objects playing peekaboo with us. It is especially lovely with the emptiness of it--the deadness of sound, the isolation, the creep factor. Who could resist?

I remember one of the first Stephen King stories I read was about fog--I don't remember much except people being stuck in a grocery store(?) and needing to get home through very scary unseen monsters. I also remember Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon--and how certain people could become lost from Glastonbury and stumble through the mists and end up in Avalon. At thirteen, those story details make their way into the psyche--and now when fog is so thick you can't see your own hand I think about ghosts and monsters and wonder how lost I could get.

So tonight is a night to be insulated with one's own thoughts, one's own ghosts. It is a good night for journaling. It is a good night for blankets and a good book. It is a good time for silence and listening to all the sounds we never pay attention to during our busy lives. Fog slows everything down--take advantage of it.

art journals

I found SuziBluTube because someone on the boards at WetCanvas recommended her.

She is funny and has great ideas for art journals! Really, I never knew that art journals could be so cool looking. I always thought of them for plain jane sketches and making a color chart of all my colored pencils and testing mixed paint colors. But Suzi's journals feel alive and more like a JOURNAL than just a journal.

Here's her first How to Make An Art Journal post

They are highly entertaining and just good fun. Enjoy.

new journal

Ok...I know I'm a bit late on the new year hoohah...

I collect writing journals. If I see one I think is beautiful, I pick it up. That said, I'm covered for maybe the next twenty years.

I haven't kept one in a while, so I felt that it might be time to renew my journaling habit. Usually I have several going at once: 1) regular journal; 2) dream journal; 3) creative and interesting snippet journal; etc. But my goal is to keep ONE intact journal this year.

This is my journal. Isn't it lovely? You can find your own at Barnes and Noble. This is called a Scrittura Italian Printed Leather Journal with Tie. The lined paper is of a cream color and has a fleur de lis at the bottom of each page. I don't know how many pages it contains, but it is very thick for a journal--and smells (obviously) of leather.

There are also similar journals without ties: see this link, and here.

But, everyone must find the journal that speaks to them. It doesn't even have to be fancy. It could be just a cheap spiral notebook. I always think that a journal should be what makes you comfortable and safe. After all, aren't you going to be the best of friends?

******************************

Right now I am listening to a free downloaded story called "A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman. I think it should be an interesting story and I will have to listen to it again. There is something about a clear voice reading out loud. A soothing lull creeps over everything and everyone. I like the expectation and anticipation that comes with listening.

I have just discovered that, unlike the Harry Potter novels which I have read, audio stories that I have no familiarity with cannot be listened to while doing other things. I cannot surf the web. I cannot write. I cannot do things which require half an iota of brainpower. So, I will have to sit in the quiet and possibly crochet a scarf while listening intently to this new story.