By Eleanor Gamarsh
I suppose my journal writing practice began when I was a teen. I always had a small notebook tucked away in my favorite hand tooled leather shoulder bag. I kept notes about anything I needed to remember. Besides the usual, I would write the lyrics to favorite songs, especially those sung by dreamy Dick Haymes. I remember one with gilded edged pages that was titled Diary and locked. Over many years there were many books of varying sizes and descriptions from common to fancy, the latter chosen when I felt I was in some time of life changing events. I would feel it appropriate to write what could be called an introduction to what I expected to be writing on its pages. I want to share this example, and the poem I mention.
“The day I bought this new journal, I believe now before Jan. 1, I had come to some decisions about myself again. I was in a state of introspection out of which a poem evolved explaining my feelings at that time. Feelings or passive desire to remain for a while inside the stillness letting life go along outside around me as is, only “coming out” when someone needed me, then returning to the silence.
I needed a new journal so went to my favorite store, Pilgrim Book World...There on the sale table was this one only with a picture. I found the situation symbolic (as usual) . The only journal with a picture cover and that picture of a house with a lamp outside the closed door. Well look again, no door but closed windows. [The east facing house is shadowed by tall trees close in front of it. The evening light still in the sky behind it accentuates the dark shadows in front.] Still it seems to express something in my life right now. In the end of my last journal some of this is expressed. I will leave that one behind and begin to clarify my feelings in these new pages.”
Waves of Silence
Words for poems do ride
On silent waves inside.
Long have they hidden
Out of sight unbidden.
In the unconscious realm of knowing
They were hidden from showing.
Line after line arises
As the mind samples sizes.
While keeping the world outside,
Thoughts and feelings can hide.
I put on my mask
To speak when they ask.
Then returning to the silence
Away from the outer glance.
On the inner journey
I see what I've been learning
Unhindered by the sounds
Outside that do abound.
Something has been set free;
Begun to let me see.
As I take this journey inside
Letting myself in silence abide.
These words slow to come,
Float out of their home
In my silent unconscious,
Begin to feel delicious.
Allowing them to float up
On the waves of silence,
This particular journal is filled with my new experiences of being a novice disciple of a Living Spiritual Master. I wrote about how this was affecting my family life, the difficulties caused because I had special promises to keep that didn't involve my family, but also poems that flowed out of my spiritual ecstasy.
Years later, while going through divorce and all the disillusionment, of trust betrayed, many pages are filled with scribbled largely written words of anger. While I searched for my self again, over and over, I wrote about all the plans I had for my life. I wrote lists of my skills, my many attributes, designs for art I wanted to do. Then when I thought I was finally going to be able to climb my mountain, I experienced two falls. The first was the worst, giving me a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. I was just finding out why I was having difficulties doing everyday activities when a second fall added more injury to my already confusing existence. My recovery has been recorded in a stack of journals and copies of other journal writing typed as I continued learning how to use a computer. I wrote stories and poems as a way to fathom what had happened to me, and questioned how it was going to affect my future.
About
Eleanor is a Multi Media Artist who is an active member of a local art association, and the Wachusett Writers and Poets Club. She was published in the club's Inspirations and Expressions 2012. The Gardner News has published her poems in their Poetry Corner. When not writing, she enjoys reading, gardening, and various forms of needlework.
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