To Journal

December 19, 2009

Isn’t the word ‘journal’ sometimes a VERB? Like, ‘to journal’? I couldn’t find it online, just this from Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: jour·nal

I’ve decided i’m going to take a journal with me to my residency in Vermont. I’ve written in journals off and on since I was in my early 20s. I even wrote in one during the year before my 40th birthday (last year). But I thought I would document this intense month of writing. I’m usually inconsistent with journaling, so we’ll see. It may work out or it may not. I may just write quick observations and notes or I might get inspired and really let loose in the journal.

I’m also going to take The Journals of John Cheever with me. It’s a book I’ve had for years and have read sporadically but I think i’m going to have it to read when I need a break. I wish I had this fancyschmancy new paperback but instead I have a very 70s looking hardback.

Here’s the very first passage, which, it notes, is from the late 40s or early 50s.

In middle age there is no mystery, there is mystification. The most I can make out of this hour is a kind of loneliness. Even the beauty of the visible world seems to crumble, yes even love. I feel that there has been some miscarriage, some wrong turning, but I do not know when it took place and I have no hope of finding it.

Cheerful, eh? Let’s home my journal-ing is a bit more optimistic. Though I can kind of see what he’s saying here.