Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
I crafted the cover myself. It's a random collage of torn bits out of a magazine; thrown together and painted over with Elmer's glue in a fleeting gasp of late night inspiration. There exists a single brown eye paired with an unmatching mouth, a faded turquoise wooden wall, navy paisley, a woman clutching her black sun hat in a gust of wind, a lonely, vintage vase of white roses looming on a nightstand, all thrown together with whatever else I unearthed. I knew this would be the journal I actually write in.
It is my own piece of beautiful, creative chaos; the ebb and flow of my mental state, contained in one small spiral bound notebook. It breathes and moves as I write, sometimes fast paced, hard and cynical, or calm and reflective, gloomy or exultant.
I write letters to myself. I address letters to inanimate objects and individuals who will never read them. Sharply angled, dark penciled drawings mark the margins, and on occasion a page will contain only a single sentence. There are lists of what I love, hate, what I know will change and what won't, what I would do given all the time in the world. Favorite songs, lyrics, and quotations litter the pages, random and somewhat irrelevant. Often, cynicism surfaces and my language leaps up to bite anyone who dares read. Then it seems as if I discover the meaning of life, and everything gloriously spreads itself in front of me, and just when I believed myself happy, reality claws at the door again and sends me spiraling back down into cynicism.
Now after a solid two years and four journals, I see. I see that no matter how many times I discover my purpose, its destiny is change. Meaning emerges not from a single revelation, but a series of many- a collage of torn out ideas and philosophies that, however random, all make their home on the looking glass through which I see my life. They create a cover, if you will, and life is the journal I actually write in.
I crafted the cover myself. It's a random collage of torn bits out of a magazine; thrown together and painted over with Elmer's glue in a fleeting gasp of late night inspiration. There exists a single brown eye paired with an unmatching mouth, a faded turquoise wooden wall, navy paisley, a woman clutching her black sun hat in a gust of wind, a lonely, vintage vase of white roses looming on a nightstand, all thrown together with whatever else I unearthed. I knew this would be the journal I actually write in.
It is my own piece of beautiful, creative chaos; the ebb and flow of my mental state, contained in one small spiral bound notebook. It breathes and moves as I write, sometimes fast paced, hard and cynical, or calm and reflective, gloomy or exultant.
I write letters to myself. I address letters to inanimate objects and individuals who will never read them. Sharply angled, dark penciled drawings mark the margins, and on occasion a page will contain only a single sentence. There are lists of what I love, hate, what I know will change and what won't, what I would do given all the time in the world. Favorite songs, lyrics, and quotations litter the pages, random and somewhat irrelevant. Often, cynicism surfaces and my language leaps up to bite anyone who dares read. Then it seems as if I discover the meaning of life, and everything gloriously spreads itself in front of me, and just when I believed myself happy, reality claws at the door again and sends me spiraling back down into cynicism.
Now after a solid two years and four journals, I see. I see that no matter how many times I discover my purpose, its destiny is change. Meaning emerges not from a single revelation, but a series of many- a collage of torn out ideas and philosophies that, however random, all make their home on the looking glass through which I see my life. They create a cover, if you will, and life is the journal I actually write in.
