From Dream Journal to Quotes Journal

 

June, 1992 I opened a new 9-1/2" x 6" notebook specifically to record my dreams. I have always believed that my dreams held a lot of information I needed to understand - my subconscious self informing my conscious self. 

On the opening page I wrote: "Those who lose dreaming are lost." Aboriginal Proverb.  Dream - Time" and then my name and the year. I filled seven and a half pages with dreams that June. Then blank pages until April 21, 1999 - three pages recording a dream and some thoughts about why I dreamt it.

Then two more dreams, one May 24, 2014 and one in July 2021. Both were about my Mom and both in which I heard her say my name so clearly that each time it woke me up.

I would have absolutely no luck writing down my dreams anymore because I cannot remember them at all. What bits and pieces I do remember are pretty wild.

For more years than this journal has been in existence, I have been writing down passages from books I read and quotes that spoke to me on bits and pieces of paper, whatever was at hand at the time. Then one day I thought: Why don't I write those quotes, etc. in a notebook and have them all in one place. 

So on August 16, 2020 my Dream Journal became my Quotes Journal. And the first quote was a passage from Elizabeth Strout's book Olive Again p. 195 'Exiles':  "And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect."

Two quotes on August 22: "The scent of the willow was sharp and secret."  - From Louise Erdrich's book The Night Watchman. First, I have always loved the scent of willows. Second, if you haven't read Louise Erdrich's books, you are really missing out. Regardless of subject matter/storyline, her writing is exquisite and the tale significant.

And the first four lines from Emily Dickinson's poem This World is not Conclusion:

This World is not Conclusion.

A Species stands beyond - 

Invisible, as Music -

But positive, as Sound -

I've had much more success with keeping my Quotes Journal than I did the Dream Journal. On the second page of quotes I copied this one: October 25, 1993 - "We possess ideas, but we are possessed by feelings. They lie too deep for understanding, astir with their own secret life and carrying us with them." From The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan. (Copied from my Spiritual Journey Journal) Now I need to find that notebook and see how long and how many pages I wrote in it! 😉

"How lovely to be compared to the seasons! You are a poet - writing to another poet's heart." (From another of my old journals: 6-14-74)

"These pictures of her, like everything else, are drenched in time." From Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.

"The who you are with others is not you. To be lonesome is to be who you most fully are." From Varina by Charles Frazier.

"A world of any kind begins at the outskirts of your imagination."

"Memories are poetic truths that blur the lines between reality and fantasy."

"The grab bag nature of my mind." Ivan Doig

"Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul ... seek solitude." Delacroix

"All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. And under our skin, under the layers of wrinkles and experiences and laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves. Directly below the surface, we are our former selves: the former child, the former lover, the former daughter." From The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George.

One of my greatest pleasures the past few years has been taking photos to go along with my blog posts and Facebook posts.

In that context - here is a picture of a willow tree to go along with one of the quotes above.

Are you also a quote keeper? Favorites?