I find myself once again in my haven at Barnes & Noble with a cup of Starbucks coffee sitting in an over-stuffed chair next to a complete stranger who is apparently lost in his book. He reads as I do - in great concentration, his legs crossed, one foot rotating slowly at the ankle. He is probably one of those people you see at restaurants and airports who are always moving - a finger tapping, or a foot bouncing, but when engrossed in a book the movement slows as them ind is pulled into a different place or time created by an unknown entertainer. Since childhood books have always provided a haven for me - a way of escape from my childhood and it's undesirables. I suppose that's why I can manage my budget so logically with the exception of book expenditures. I just recently counted over 60 of these separate havens stacked next to my bed and overflowing bookshelf, waiting for my next escape. They pose a medical danger to me because if one from the bottom of the stack calls to me, I've found that without precise and cautious movement, they all tend to lose their balance and come crashing down on my head - this I say from recent experience.....
In addition to reading other's words, and entering into their world, putting my own thoughts, feelings and worries down into words provides me an escape of a different sort. It allows me to clear out a little working space in my brain. (I picture this like the library of memories that represents the brain of Jonesy (Damion Lewis), in the movie "Dreamcatchers" - a multi-storied library with little tables through-out for concentration and de-muddeling of thoughts). When I am able to get some of my thoughts out and captured on paper it relieves my mind and allows it to ease up on that particular worry and let the journal handle it. Amazingly, though a journal's appearance is deceptively non-animated, it does seem quite capable not only of receiving words & thoughts, but also sorting through them during its closure, so that when you open it once again you are greeted with your own thoughts & words, but they appear to have been dusted off, they are clearer, and seem to make more sense than when you poured them onto the paper.
This is my escape, second only to books and ranking very close to driving my vehicle all alone on lonely roads where there is no traffic to crowd me, and my thoughts ride along with me at high speed, each clamoring for my undivided attention.
While journeling can actually help me clear out my thoughts, speeding does not, although it does wonders for my adrenaline cravings.
I was pulled into Barnes & Noble today for the express purpose of finding the perfect journal to confide in. It had to meet certain requirements - I wanted soft leather, a certain line width, an inviting cover, the ability to lay open flat on its spine so that my writing is not interrupted by the hump of a cheap, hard spine.
I found this "perfect for me" journal after 20 minutes of deliberating in front of four 4' facings of eight shelves each filled with every kind of journal you can imagine. My price limit was the cost of 5 gallons of gas (when gas was over $3.50 a gallon), or 65 miles of driving in my truck. Since the journal also allows me the escape that driving does, I can compare the current cost of gas per gallon, by the number of miles I'll get in each gallon (about 13 - my truck is so NOT "green"), so next time I'm tempted to run away in my truck, I can sit down and put that gas money to good use in my journal, which is kind of like a washing machine for the mind. The problem with journaling is, unlike driving, I don't ever seem to reach a good place to stop, turn around and go back. I will continue to write, much like a person who has a nervous habit of chattering.
Today I have many things going on in my mind that could really use some good closure time in this "oh-so-perfect" journal I found, but I'm due for a massage in a few moments, so I suppose I will have to draw them out during my next segment of uninterrupted "me" time.
10.3.08
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