old journals

This morning, I finally got one of the boxes of old journals and brought it to the studio - I am making a bookshelf of all my many journals.
As I labeled them and added them to the shelf, I could not resist opening each one and diving deep into the past.
Hurts, joys, traumas and victories - they all come flooding back as I see the images and read the words of a decade along the path.
It really is a wonderful thing to have a record of where you have been. On one level, I am dismayed and sad at how much I have the same old things to say, ten years ago I seemed to have many of the griping complaints I have today.
You woulda thunk I woulda gotten somewhere more along this path!
But on another level, I can see how far I really have come.
Especially my journaling style can be seen to change, morph, grow and develop over these years - something I didn't even realize was happening.
I used to write and write - often unloading the stress of the day, and then add a picture or two to make it visually more stimulating.
Now, I play with colors and images, then write.
It took me ten years of journaling to get here, and you can see the progress in a thousand baby steps of journal keeping.
Here are some of the older pages, the seeds of the way I work now are all there, but it just hasn't quite been born.
The tiny voice asking for authenticity is in there somewhere, being formed.
Nice to know I have progressed in some small way.
Nice to know life does seek better and stronger and more complete expression.
It might take years, but as the years tick by, I do seem to somehow be getting just a bit closer and closer to my real voice.
I am happy with what I am doing here. and in very small increments, I have gotten somewhere wonderful with this one life.
and for that, I am very very grateful.







"Always, at the back of your soul, there is something that says to you, 'Mortal, drawn from eternal life for a short time, think how precious these moments are.'" --Eugene Delacroix