Benjamin Percy
My Journals: The Art and Craft of Repetition
Posted by Terry Tempest Williams, March 7, 2013 10:00 am
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Filed under: Original Essays.
To write is to breathe. I don't think about it. It's like oxygen. But if you take it away from me, I will suffocate. I need the blank page as the landscape upon which I stand, to think, ponder, consider, rant, rave, reveal, question, and explore where I have been, what I have done, and what the world is holding at any given moment. It is my habitat for images, secrets, stories, notes, facts, figures, lists, calendars, quotes, dialogue, epiphanies, and, most importantly, an honest accounting of the mundane. Each of my journals is a compass point, a daily orientation, my North Star.
When people ask me if I write every day, I say, "No," and that is the truth. But today, as I write about keeping a journal, I see it reveals a deeper truth that swings on a lie that I did not recognize until now. I do write every day, but in my mind, this writing doesn't count because it is the writing I do in my journal: daily, private, and for myself.
Why do I so readily discount the power of this practice, the dailiness of ...
