Le Cahier Jaune

"The Yellow Notebook"

I've kept a journal for many years. Grandma Lynam gave me a five year diary for xmas in 1955. I began writing in it January 1, 1956. "I stayed at Grandma L's last night. Dad came and got us and brought us home for New Year's dinner. Took Grandma home this p.m."

The diary was black with a border of Egyptian hieroglyphics. It had a lock and key and four lines to record each day's happenings. In 1958 I turned it into a three year diary so I had 12 lines for each day. I was a freshman then. I had MUCH more to write about. In the back of the diary were several pages for addresses. I had friends and relatives pen their own addresses and phone numbers. Grandma Lynam's phone number was 117. Our country party line number was 12F21. The Roberts cousins' was 37F25. More than fifty years later those numbers are familiar.

In 1960 I had a pink "date line" one year diary. I don't know what happened to 1959 and 1961. If I had a diaries for those years they have been lost to time. But I recorded '56, '57, '58 and '60 faithfully. I think a diary for 1961 would be especially interesting: graduation, engagement, marriage, first job. After that I was too busy being a wife and mother and working full time to have the time to keep a diary. It would be ten years before I started recording my days again. By then it was called 'journaling'. And it didn't demand a daily entry like a diary. One could write when one had something to say and the time to say it.

Somewhere I read that a journal should be loose bound so I used a spiral notebook. Then when I was reading about Jennie Churchill I read of her publishing "Le Cahier Jaune" - "The Yellow Notebook". Romantic that I was (am and always will be), I bought a fat yellow five subject spiral notebook, wrote "Le Cahier Jaune" on the cover and began a new journal. (As it happens, yellow has always been one of my favourite colours.)

I have always had a problem beginning a new journal - even a spiral notebook. I fear "soiling" it somehow - writing something I wish I hadn't; misspelling a word; using punctuation incorrectly; not being able to express my thoughts as well as I want. In other words - not being perfect. In Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down The Bones" she suggests writing each day without thinking about spelling, punctuation or even what you are writing about: "Write about anything. And if you can't think of anything to write, write: 'I can't think of anything to write about' over and over until something does come to your mind." I tried that for awhile as I rode the bus from West Des Moines to work in downtown Des Moines. It was too hard. I couldn't let myself be that free.

I have many partially filled notebooks some of them with gaps of years. I have some lovely blank journals that I'm saving for "something special" or because of the old nemesis of being perfect. One of them is a saddle tan, embossed, genuine leather, "made in Italy" treasure from my daughter. How can I spoil those ivory pages? What deserving words could I possibly write on them?

The heroine of the novel I am currently reading has ALS and is dying. She is writing a journal for her 16 year old daughter to read after she is gone. If I were diagnosed with a terminal illness would I then be able to write in this journal from Kari? Would I record my thoughts as the disease progressed? Would I try to leave words of wisdom for her?

Another prized blank book is one of hand made and hand bound pages from my friend Kristina. What could I possibly write worthy of such a fine gift?

This blog has mostly taken the place of handwriting in a notebook. It fulfills a need in me to write. But there are still subjects and thoughts too private to share. And there is still the feel of a pen in my hand as I cover a page in my increasingly uneven handwriting.

My Mom's diaries record daily high and low temperatures, wind direction, weather conditions and what she did that day; nothing about her thoughts and feelings. My journals are almost all about thoughts and feelings. Some future day when my granddaughter or great grandson reads them, I want them to have a sense of who I was.