Thursday, April 20, 2017

Journal





Today is my birthday.  I thought I should start my journal today, fresh again.  Like most New Year's  resolution this is another one I make each year.  With a new notebook.

The part I like is,  buying the new journal.  I have so many of them, some so  beautiful that I feel shy to blemish them.  I brush fingers on them, sniff to  smell the opened blank pages. Then I  leave them untouched, bare. I consider myself a minimalist, at least a wanna-be-minimalist, but in this journal  buying thing,  I am confused.  My need and want areas are blurry, and I never feel I have enough.

 I did find a new journal on my shelf.  A pretty one in matted black with a tiny photograph of a blooming gardenia.  As I untied the scarlet satin ribbon attached to it,  the diary opened and a card fell. A blank card.  It read -

"Be patient toward all that unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." by Rainer Maria Rilke.

I must have bought it for someone and forgot .  Well, today it is mine.

I was thinking of my parents.  While they were alive each year a card came from my father with interesting messages and uplifting thoughts.  I wanted to believe that it was from Ma and Baba for my birthday today, and they were blessing me from heaven.  I felt tearful, thanking someone because they were my parents.

I thought of all the people around me today, all the love they have given me, unconditionally, unaware. Most of the time I take them for granted, but today it touched me in a different way.  I decided I should put this in writing today, this emotion, gratitude,  in my new journal.

I will capture all the fleeting moments of sweetness and spread it out here: the dazzle of the dew drop on the meticulous cobweb,  the humming bird's halted mid flight, all those  will be snapshots on  the page. And I'll  post the funny stories  that my little grand kids say.

It will not be a book for to do lists. It will  be a friend whom I can confide to, it'll be the mentor who'll transcend my spirit from the mundane.

I looked at the picture of the gardenia:

"And now in age I bud again
After so many deaths I live and write
I once more smell the dew and rain
And relish versing..... "  

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