![]() This morning I woke up tired. Exhausted. For good reason. My family and I were out at a Red Sox game last night. It was one of those days that didn't start out looking like it would be a nice night to watch a ballgame, but it ended up being pitch perfect weather. And, despite not knowing most of the basics about baseball--like rules, jargon, who the players are, stats and such--I really enjoy a game at Fenway Park in my favorite city of Boston! The walk-out songs for the players and the intermittent song samples in between plays gives me reason to dance in my seat and feel like I'm out at a dance club and yet . . . I'm sitting (haha:) and the songs don't last long so there's no getting sick of one particular song or sweating on the dance floor. Oh--and there's a ball game going on and depending on how good it is, you can tune in or out of it at will. The peddlers are walking around with various snacks and drinks balanced on their heads. I LOVE THAT!! In the midst of the world's attempt to make everything electronic--super annoying--Fenway Park insists on clinging to some of that traditional human element that really makes it a creature all its own. And it feels so alive in there. People getting in and out of seats at all times, peddlers crawling around the aisles hoisting over their heads: hotdogs, lemonade, chowder, popcorn, beer, pizza, cotton candy and whatever else they think fans might want. The hotdog guy is most impressive with that heavy, metal container of steaming dogs and rolls safely outside the vat so they don't get soggy. $7 will get you a dog in a fresh bun, wrapped and with one packet of mustard. Not much to pay for nostalgic-and-nitrate-filled magic from my husband's youth delivered to his seat:) ![]() I can't claim to be a baseball fan, but I am definitely a Fenway Park fan. The energy is an automatic mood lifter. Participating in the wave and singing Sweet Caroline off key is something you have to experience. Even the construction of the building, with its cement and steel painted green, feels so real as you walk around and you're inside and outside at the same time--inside a city and yet outside of it, too. I love it! So, now. It's May 31st. I'm tired. It's Friday. I want to have a nice cup of tea and write in my journal. --to not really think or have to make sense quite yet. But, wait!! I finished the journal I was writing in yesterday morning. I'm pretty sure I bought several journals last time I purchased one. I even found the website for my favorite journal company, Studio Oh!, and got them delivered to my house. So. Where. Are they? Even. Just. One? No. I'm out of journals. Like someone who craves coffee or something sweet in the evening. I'm searching around unconvinced I can't have a single journal ready to call into action. Coffee and chocolate lovers? You know what I'm talking about as you open cabinets, refrigerator doors, check your favorite stashing locations telling herself there has to be one coffee's worth of grounds . . . one forgotten piece of chocolate--SOMEWHERE!! And after looking at the same locations you already looked you realize there is none. ![]() I have already cued up several journals online to be delivered, but not this morning. Not today. So, what does a girl who needs a journal like a morning cup of coffee do? Well, I look at the list of "to do"s that I did not want to do and decide to do them. Ugh! The good news is that this is the second thing on my list and now it's done. And was that so hard? No. Did I even enjoy it? Yes. So, why do I procrastinate doing it every month until the last day of the month? I don't know that I have a good answer for that. I think it's just easier, safer to write in my journal and know that it is only for me. Spelling mistakes are not an issue. Substituting the wrong word is obsolete--and my least favorite writing mistake: not adding "not" before a word so that the meaning of the sentence is actually the opposite of what I meant to write. Fictional example to give you an idea of what I mean: "I do not like bunnies." becomes "I do like bunnies." (Sorry bunny fans. I currently do not like bunnies since they eat everything in my garden down to the nub.) Here is my blog for May. Is it amazing? Let's say, sure:) It's a blog. My thoughts as I think them. A concept that is simple but not always easy. Musings I usually capture in my journals. Go get yourself a journal. It will pair perfectly with your cup of tea or coffee --or that hidden piece of chocolate! ![]() I've kept a journal since I was a teenager. However, writing in a journal was like one of those on-again, off-again relationships. I can't say I ever really wrote with any reliable level of consistency over a long period of time and often, when I was younger, the entries were more centered on "what I did" than "what I thought." But, when the pandemic started in March 2020, that changed. I started filling up a whole journal every three months, so I'd say I probably filled about six journals since then, alone. It was as if writing in my journal was my moment to take a deep breath at a time when it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. Today, the third page I wrote in my journal was my attempt to figure out why writing in my journal is something I have begun looking forward to as much as my morning cup of tea. I'm transcribing my thoughts here--in this online "Diary," to encourage others to find solace and sanity in the safe confines of a journal, diary, notebook or whatever you term it. (Warning, part of the perk of journal writing is no grammar, run-on sentence, spelling mistakes exist or matter--so I'm copying it in here as it was written in all its carefree format.:) Here's what I wrote: Anyway, I'm enjoying the pocket of time right now when I don't have to be anywhere and the kids are watching cartoons downstairs and I'm in this chair in the living room with a cup of tea and this journal. I can't quite understand why writing in this journal is so attractive to me, why it feels like such an "escape" but I almost crave it at times. Maybe it's because I'm safe here--as cheesy as that sounds. I'm able to say what I want whether I'm right or wrong or politically incorrect. I am able to sort out my thoughts, maybe make sense of them, perhaps vent my frustrations with anyone and everyone without worry of offense or disagreement, and also I am able to let out the leash to allow my ideas and imagination to run wild. To dream on paper and quietly out loud:) Silently out loud. Without fears of contradiction or being talked sense into. It's a vision board sans images. Sans color! A vision board of black and white that leaves the imagination of the reader to fill in the vivid greens and bright blues. Time and space and freedom. There are so many means available these days that allow people to escape, to breathe a little, loosen the collar--so to speak--and here is perhaps one of the healthier, most accessible, cost efficient and convenient of them all: ![]() Writing in this here humble Journal . . . Thank the Lord for paper and pen :) |
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