Winter has been quite mild here, but sometimes February gives us another blast just to remind everyone that winter is not officially over. Happily, we reached the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox just yesterday meaning that daylight hours will increase noticeably. I also read that the sun will no longer set before 5 pm until next November. Let's just ignore that and enjoy the lengthening days and coming spring/summer.
First published in 1987, Victoria magazine inspired me in so many ways. I loved reading it in my jungle home in South America, but that's a story for another time. I kept many of my favourite issues, and others collected for me. This month I pulled out January 1994 and re-read Phyllis Theroux's essay "On Keeping a Journal." Here are a few quotes that I find myself nodding to in agreement.
"There is no right or wrong way to keep a journal. The mind of the writer inevitably imposes itself upon the style."
"Some time ago, a friend of mine showed me a large trunkful of journals that had been written by his mother, the dutiful wife of a career diplomat. While she was alive, no one, not even her husband, knew they existed. Perhaps, I thought, one of the reasons she kept a journal, as she kept to her diplomatic rounds, was to remind herself that she existed, too."
"...the pages of one's journal are where the least self-conscious and most eloquent (although not necessarily most polished) voice is first found, which is why so many writers often keep one."
I've kept a journal since about 1989, with periodic writings before then. I don't write every day - it's not a diary. I'm opening those journals these days in writing my family's story, and there are things that make me laugh out loud, and others that make me weep. One thing that I wish I could tell my younger self is to be kinder to myself.
Do you keep a journal? Or a diary? Do you go back and read your past writings?
