1. Gerard ter Borch, Woman writing a letter, (1655, The Hague: The Mauritshuis).
2. Gerard ter Borch, Woman reading a letter, ( 1660, London: The Royal Collection Trust).
Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the founding fathers of the Existentialism movement, once said that keeping a journal was one of the most selfish practices anybody could keep. This statement, which came out of the lips one of twentieth-century most influential thinkers, resonated with me straight away. Of course, journaling is a selfish practice because one can amplify, magnify, diminish, evaporate, and even modify, a wide array of thoughts, actions, feelings, and, most importantly, impressions. Being so, everything then revolves around the I, if you write in the first person, or you if your journal has a name and you call it confidante.
Recently, in between the cleansing and decluttering phase fueled by January, I stumbled upon some journals that I used to keep when I was a teenager and some others from when I carried acrylics in my pockets during art school semesters. I was surprised when I spotted the differences between the Moleskine agendas, notebooks, and stacked pages. A younger version of myself did catapult her angst and energy towards a self-centered essay of boasting and lamenting, accompanied by scribbles that scarred the paper. On the contrary, my naive artistic aspiring persona did not only write about her happenings but also described the silhouettes, colors, objects, and rhythms around her. Those journals weren't supposed to be a secret anymore, not that I could because professors asked their students to keep journals, which they checked with a certain periodicity, to experience the cruise towards a painting or a sculpture.
Drawings, collages made with tickets, watercolors within lists, even forget me not ideas that somehow have managed to materialize today. How could I have left aside such a simple yet enriching practice? I rushed, I tried to find a brand new journal at home, and I knew for a fact that it wasn't difficult because I buy notebooks wherever I go. I kept journals when I traveled. Why? Was it because of the excitement that meant discovering or returning to a place of leisure and wonder? I reflected quickly and thought it was an unfair decision, which made my life seem like a spaced railway of thrills. I am moving despite the fact that I am not on an airplane. Everyday life provides me with excitement, challenges, curiosities, and particularities. I was aware that I was not going to document everything for a memoir, but I wanted AND needed the opportunity to figure myself out. I ended up journaling throughout January, and my ordinary notebook became a binnacle. Those blank pages do not recognize time and space's dullness because they fed with whatever was at hand. As I reviewed the produce of carrying around a journal, I witnessed selfishness gradually replaced with awareness and consciousness, echoes of meditation followed by a bright smirk that finally faced solace.
MLGT.
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