Putting Things Back Together

I’ve recently been pushing to get all aspects of my journaling put back together and accessible again.

During Covid my Drobo device which was my first layer of digital backup (the one that sits on my desk) died. All 32 TB of data were up on a service somewhere out of sight so I was inconvenienced, but not destroyed.

But we were in the middle of a house move that ended up taking 4 years (and truthfully I’m still not completely unpacked). Just yesterday as I was continuing to put things back together digitally, I found this page.

It doesn’t seem like much. A quick and messy sketch. But it makes me smile. I understand why it didn’t get scanned. I was ill at the time, and we were trying to get my computer equipment moved.

What Journaling Is for Me

People who don’t use a journal don’t understand the many ways that those of us who have kept a journal all our lives do use them.

People ask me all the time, “How often do you look back through a journal anyway?”

That’s a complex question. Do I sit down and go through my journals on some sort of regular basis? No. Do I sit down in the afternoon and pull out a journal to read and view instead of reading a mystery? No. 

My journal has, since childhood, served as a sort of giant, ever growing filing system. Things I see, hear, taste, smell, notice, ponder, and sometimes even solve (or resolve) are all in what I call my Journal. I’ll say, “I have to look in my journal.” That doesn’t mean the current volume—it means the entire bulk of all those journals I’ve kept. (Conservative estimate sits at 2,000 plus volumes [see comment following], with multiple lost volumes from ages 7 to 15 and 21 to 25, and the year 2013!)

Correction 9.21.24: I was looking at the shelf for the last few years and thought this number couldn’t be correct. Writing the blog from 2008 to the present has cut into the number of written journals I complete each year. An estimate for total volumes (written and visual—most of which are hybird and contain lots of text too) would sit closer to 1,500. Calculations are a little complex also because in about 2010 or so I began keeping loose sheet journals where 9 x 12 inch sheets were put into boxes. I don’t include those in my book count, though their contents does go into my end of year visual page count. Also I used to travel a lot more and do more specialty journals per year (MN State Fair, several travel journals, that sort of thing). Until I start traveling again, average counts from past years can’t be used to estimate a total without some additional math.  

So an index is obviously necessary if I’m going to find anything—whether it’s detailed notes from an argument with my brother about which TV show we were going to watch in 1968, or a reading list for 1983, or one of the many discussions I have with Dick. Beyond that I use the journal to do my drawing practice. It contains my experiments—notes and examples. It’s from all those pages that my classes grew. 

Keeping all this organized and accessible through the index meant that if I wanted to have an example of a certain type of painting I’d done, or examples of materials I’d used and how, it was all in the journal. I could write detailed class notes for students, pull scans for visual examples, even have process photos.

I was doing all this even as a child because process matters to me. And also once I do something and “get it” I often go off in another direction. So if I need to return to some tool or approach I can quickly look it up. I love efficiency.

As I’ve mentioned before, indexing a completed journal takes about 20 to 30 minutes on average (usually less if it’s mostly visual, and slightly longer if it contains a lot of text). That’s well worth the time saved if I need to find an example in a hurry.

Disruption of Services

All good systems, when up and running are taken for granted. In my neighborhood we expect access to clean drinking water and uninterrupted electricity. (Storms happen and outages occur, but those are rare—we expect services.)

I expected certain things from my journal. The same things it had always given me. Easy access to my thoughts, project outlines, notes, and drawings.

When all that was disrupted I had a difficult time adjusting. Throughout the move, until I could set up the new studio and start processing material again, journals kept being filled, but they didn’t get indexed!

This had never happened before in my life and it made me more than grumpy. At times I felt I was losing my mind. Did I remember something? Did I imagine it? Where was it? (I was also very ill during 2021 for several months and not having a routine changes what my brain remembers, so while I continued to journal through all that, not having it indexed makes it seem a little like a dream.)

When I was indexing the journal containing today’s image I was surprised to find the image. I frankly didn’t remember painting it. It was as if a hole had opened up in my memory and I was seeing that hole for the first time.

Other journals, three years out from completion but not yet indexed have been creating a sense of uneasiness, but this simple sketch made it all fall into place for me.

Anything before 2020 when things were still being indexed and fully digitized I can remember as if it were yesterday! I can pull the exact volume off the shelf if you ask me for something.

But these recent volumes, it is almost as if they never existed. I open them and am surprised by most of their contents. (The only bits that don’t surprise me are the pieces I shared with students during the same period of time they were generated.)

What does this tell me about my brain and my temperament?

First, when things get difficult I hold on to the core tool that has sustained me throughout my life—my journal. I’m very grateful that I’ve been clearheaded enough to see and do that—or so overwhelmed that it just habitually happened. (Remember I am a huge advocate of healthy habits.)

Second, I’m a bit stunned that completing a journal and then spending 30 minutes indexing it by keywords can solidify that journal in my memory.

I feel gratified for spending every indexing moment. And I marvel at how my brain works. How it can do so much, with so little reinforcement. Yes I lived the writing, the drawing, and the painting. Showing up and journaling does put those subjects you’re observing more firmly in your head. But for me the act of indexing reinforces the structure of memory and recall in ways I can’t begin to understand, but I am happy to have worked it out!

This process of putting everything back together has also made it very clear to me that I don’t want to live in informational chaos.

Everyone (literally everyone but Dick and my friend Diane) is always asking, “When are you going to stop all this indexing and just enjoy your journal?”

I enjoy my journal NOW. More than it seems most people can understand. Why would I want to stop that enjoyment? Why would I want to leave out a crucial step in how my brain works efficiently? Why would I want to interject chaos into my organizational system—especially as I’m now in the final years of life, when memory is something we can’t take for granted!

What I have learned in 64 years of journaling is that it works for me.

And it evolves and shifts and ends up looking different depending on which books you pull off the shelves, but it is always serving the same purpose—helping me to organize my thoughts, to think about and understand my life and the lives of those around me, and to practice my creative skills. (OK, and sometimes it’s a useful record for settling disagreements or memory bets.)

Why Does Any of This Matter to You and How You Journal?

Today’s post is both about how little joys, like the fun of discovering a quick portrait can make your day; and about the larger joy of understanding yourself.

All of this can be found in journaling—which for me is both visual and written.

I feel very comfortable, based on my experience in journaling, to give you advice.

You can take my dedication to my journal as a cautionary tale or an inspiration on some of the possibilities of record keeping that is intertwined in life (but not pushing life aside). There is balance here.

But it may not be your balance.

So what I’m really hoping you take away from this is your journaling path is your journaling path, if you just step on the path and start walking.

Tips for a Life-long Journal Practice

Develop a daily habit. Journal visually and verbally every day for 30 days. (Habit experts say that’s the time it takes us to develop a habit good or bad, and we want this good habit.)

Realize that even with a healthy 30 days under your belt naysayers, or folks not happy with their own habits, will try to “knock some sense” into you and urge you to give it all up.

This is where you’ll need to decide what all this could possibly mean to you.

Are you the type of person who likes to notice things? Do you like to sketch? Do you feel more involved when you sketch and/or write notes to yourself? Do you like to read and take notes? Do you like to go to art museums and have dialogs with the paintings hanging on the walls? Do you like to go to the zoo and sketch the animals and document their behaviors and antics? Are you a curious person constantly asking “why?”? 

If any of these things is true about you (or 2 million other things that can be made manifest in the world through a journal which matter to you), then you need to ignore anyone who suggests you stop.

I was fortunate. To hear my mom tell it, I popped out of the womb lippy and willful. Once she started me with my first journal and I got that first sense of how “me” it was, I’ve never looked back. It didn’t matter what anyone said. 

But you can learn to be lippy and willful about your journal, in a quiet manner, by simply carrying on, regardless of what others say!

Keep the journal for yourself. You are the audience. The journal isn’t something you need to show others. Most of the world has never seen the majority of my journal. The only reason any of it has been shared publicly is because I started teaching journaling. Most of my journal is more private than I want to share. Or it involves things I still haven’t finished or resolved so there would be a detrimental effect on me if I shared them before I worked them out.

I’m OK with this because the journal is for me.

If you have another reason for keeping a journal, like fame, adulation, redemption, myth-building etc. by all means go ahead and give it a go.

What I can tell you is that in 40 years of teaching journaling the only people still journaling on a daily (or almost daily) routine are the ones who took time to understand how personal the journal was and to mine it for their own understanding and improvement.

Past students keeping journals for posterity petered out at early obstacles and interruptions. When I see them later they are bowed by guilt and shame that they couldn’t keep up the effort. (My journal has been a source of joy.)

It doesn’t mean their efforts were wrong-headed, it just means it is easier to sustain a life-long journaling habit if YOU are your audience.

Also you don’t have to work with diffusion filters on if you’re the audience. My journal knows exactly how much of a shit I am. I don’t candy-coat it.

Be positive in your journal.  In high school we all go through an angst period. (Some might find this earlier, I know I did, some later, be we all seem to go through it at some point.) Go ahead and complain in your journal—but every time you complain, find something that you can also focus on that is wonderful and note that down too, ponder that. Even “shitty Roz” can do that.

Why bother? What we write down is what we remember. And the sad, distressing, catastrophic all have a place in our journals as we live through those events. But we need to find something plain, simple, and joyous on an equal frequency so that when we do look back in our journals we see something that reminds us of joy. Something that shows us the rich fabric of our lives. 

Our minds and our hearts need that balance. And it also makes journaling less of a “task.”

Bad things happen to each and every one of us if we life long enough. We need to get through those events. And we do need to acknowledge them. But on the absolute worst of my days I can tell you there has always been one thing I could write about in my journal that was beautiful, simple, plain and true.

Yesterday after a challenging day, I was helping Dick with some yard tasks as night fell, and a small toad come out from behind our bench two feet from me and wondered what was going on. I’m not going to explain what a marvel I think toads are. All you need to know is that in that moment that toad had the power to shift my attitude and my universe. I’ll be able to deal with all the shit that happened yesterday, and things will get better. But I’ll remember that toad long after I’ve forgotten the day’s trials.

So find a balance, that represents you, for your journal. Let it work as a tool to vent, or process, but also celebrate wonder.

Be specific. Specifics make things come alive both in the moment we are journaling and later should we return to the page. Specifics make things actual, real. You can train yourself over time to notice more specifics and your life will be enriched. You can train yourself to think more deeply about something and examine it from different angles and understand the context. Specifics are key.

Don’t get in your mind about what your journal should contain. Put in your journal what YOU NEED to write about and draw. It’s for you remember or consider. What matters to other people isn’t what your journal is about. How do you respond to your world?

Don’t freak out when things change in your journaling. Everything in life cycles around. If you find your style or approach in your journal is changing don’t freak out. Don’t go all rigid “It has to be this way.” Let it evolve. By the time it starts to change it implies you have a regular habit established, so as long as it’s still your daily habit it doesn’t matter if it evolves and changes.

You might find yourself writing more, writing less and drawing more, you might find you are noticing a certain category of subjects instead of a past favorite. Just make a note to yourself that you’ve noticed this change and in a month come back and look at what you’ve done in your journal. Is this a direction you want to continue? What in your life pushed this change? Where do you want to go with your journal? 

This is why I’m always telling my students about the importance of a 6-week review. If you check in with yourself on the health of your journal every 6 weeks you’ll be able to catch any unhealthy changes and fix them. For instance if you see you’re now only working on weekends but you want the daily habit, you can, before your habit is totally shredded, set dates with yourself to journal through the week.

Somethings in life really are that simple if we want them.

At the same time, checking in with yourself in that way will allow you to understand how your tastes and interests are evolving. And you will recognize your next creative project even before it pops up over the horizon.

Enjoy your journaling time. This is easy for me to say after so much practice. Initially journaling may feel odd and uncomfortable. You might feel you’re intruding on others when you sketch them in public (a lot of my students start from that position, you have to work out the ethics of it for yourself). You might also feel you “shouldn’t be wasting your time.” You’ll need to recognize which internal critic is trying to squelch your joy.

What I can tell you is that the more you stick to the daily routine of journaling, even if it’s only 15 minutes for a quick note and even hastier sketch, you’ll get to the point where negative voices speak to you less because you are checking in with yourself about your goals and working to meet those goals realistically. And you’re keeping a journal for yourself and finding how fun it is to entertain yourself and embrace your curiosity and sense of wonder.

Fifteen minutes a day as you fly through your life builds up in a meaningful way that a 2-hour weekend marathon which keeps getting cancelled can never do.

You may never index your journals. You may never feel the need to do so. I’m OK with that, and I want you to be OK with that.

You are going to make a document of your life which will show you how your brain and your observational skills work. A document which will contain what matters to you. That will make it both unique and authentically yours.

You will find, through trial and error how to organize it. You will find which size journal works best. You will find which papers you enjoy working on with which tools.

Time to Get Started

Don’t get in your head. Don’t think that there is a perfect book to start with or a perfect approach.

The main issue at first is the daily routine.

But if you miss a day—don’t beat yourself up. Just make sure you show up the next day. Life happens. (If you keep missing days, then it’s time to look carefully at time and life balance in your life. I’ve written a lot about that here on the blog.)

To get started I suggest you find a 2B pencil (mechanical if you want to not sharpen it) and a blank paper notebook, and just start going. 

If you like to work in ink I recommend you use the Sakura Pigma Professional Brush pen FB (which you’ll be able to sketch and write with easily). But the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen in soft or hard might be more to your taste.

If the paper in the book you elected to start with allows ink to bleed through it don’t give up. Don’t wave your hands in the air. This happens. It’s life. Just finish the book by doing 20 life drawing gesture sketches as quickly as possible each day, all the while planning which book you’ll use next. And be sure to make notes about your life and about the paper as you go through those quick sketches so the learning about the paper and materials stays with you.

Eventually you’ll decide to pick a sketchbook that has “art paper” in it. There is a lot of happiness ahead of you. There will also be disappointment—but if you listen to what YOU like, not 10,000 voices on instagram, you’ll find the book for you.

I love the Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media soft covered 7.75 x 9.75 book because it is my favorite working size and I love the paper for all the media I work with. But I also love Hahnemühle’s Travel Journal with its toothy drawing paper—even though it isn’t wet media friendly I paint in it all the time.

I also bind my own books with papers that I love. If you want to try out binding you can watch my pamphlet binding class on YouTube to see if some of the tasks involved appeal to you. (The 6 lessons start here.)

Hard cover books are more involved but some of my students really love working in pamphlets because it allows them to finish books quickly and move on to the next favorite paper (or next paper they are testing).

My point here is that as soon as you start walking this path, with an open mind, you’ll find your way. And it is a wonderful path to be on.

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