Sitting at my writing table…I feel flat this morning. I am grateful for the song birds who are singing so beautifully today, just now coming to the feeder. I am all of a sudden (listening to the nudge) re/membering a small book on my shelf behind me. I go straight to it (often I have to scan shelves to get what I’m looking for).

The book is The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound: A Birder’s Journal by Sallie Wolf. (published 2010).

“At first glance this is a book about bird identification and behavior. But look more carefully: journaling helps us to observe, think, evaluate, record and create.” (from the back cover).

She did a book signing at Viva Books where I use to work. I had forgotten that this book was signed:

“To Carla – It all begins in the journals. Write on!” Sallie Wolf

This idea of “write on” – I do that and sometimes I wonder what in the hell for

Some days it feels like a useless waste of time and paper

The filled journal then added to a stack of other filled volumes – put in a box under the bed or in storage

Is there any redeeming value to this practice that I cannot not continue?

Stay away 3 or 4 days and I’m running back here to the blank page

Sitting down to write

If nothing comes I’ve been known to mark the date and move on

My messy writing table and the clean slate of the blank page together settle and center me

My breath deepens, I sense this flush deep in my body

I sit here and release myself

to the mercy of the pen and the paper

and all feels right

So, yes! Write On!

It is early on this last day of this year. It is cold. It is raining. I am at my writing table, rereading my journals from this past year and writing down thoughts, fragments, questions in my final volume for the year. Since I have filled 10 volumes this year this entry from my first volume of 2020 made me smile.

“I cannot find words this morning. I feel at a loss for anything to write…no questions, quotes, prompts surface. I just know I need to be on the page. I need the discipline, the practice, the commitment, the feeling of being loyal to the blank page. “Just be here” comes before the physical words begin to appear.

“Just be present to the pen and the paper. Trust that something will reveal itself on the tabula rasa journal page and will in turn reveal, perhaps, a nugget of wisdom or a question needed for the next step. Just show up.” (from my personal journal entry of Jan. 12, 2020)

How did you show up on the pages of your journal in 2020? Are you ready to begin another year on the blank page? When you just show up, trust the process, the journey, and practice the discipline, you may find yourself with 10 (or more) volumes too!