Many Ideas left in the inkwell

Property of Stormberry

Planning and preparation are great tools to make sure you get to do all you want. I love planning & preparing, and usually have calendars and lists and all sorts of stuff with this in mind. And it usually works... except when it comes to planning and preparing a blogpost. I think I have tried in the past, specially in 2012, when I was writing a post every single day. Wow, that was something!

I took part on a Philofaxy meeting at the begining of this month -  which I enjoyed like CRAZY! and everybody who has and loves filofax planners should seriously consider attending - and it was such an experience to show my system. So I was thinking about making a post about how I use my planner, and how have I've combined the bullet journal and the filofax system in one that pretty much works well, as well as showing a color-splashed, pretty hassle-free, free form, non-artistic spread. Ok, I work on them ONCE a year, and you could pretty much get the same thing just buying or printing out those inserts and that's all.

So I planned the theme, the idea, and even made the pictures for the post. LOTS of pictures. Really, like a huge bunch of them, so I had many, many angles and stuff to show, depending on how the text was going to turn out. And then... that's not what happened.

Life happened, that's what happened, and I was buried under a landslide of work and university homework, and preparing for lectures - because I'm one of those students that likes to read ahead of the class - and so the pictures are stored, along with the ideas, and I come here with new pictures - much less - and an etirely unstructured, different post idea. Like in the old days. Remember those?

Journaling is one of my favorite topics, in case you haven't noticed. That would be because I love journaling, and I love it because it's free. Of course the book costs money, and so the pen and the ink (for many years now, I only journal with fountain pens), but what I mean is that there is not set structure, like even the most free planning systems have. No keys, no rules, no blocks within the page to keep you organized, no indentation or color coding. Ok, I tend to write the initial "block" the same way (you know, the part with the date and so), but this has also changed through time a lot. There was a time when I always wrote it in Japanese (I don't speak Japanese, but I was learning and the date formula stayed in my brain for long), or always in French, and so. I have thought here and there to go Anaïs Nin and leave out the date and just write, BUT I actually need the dates because my memory is famously bad, and sadly I have encountered people in my life who have tried to gaslight me thinking I wouldn't know, because I don't remember. HA! Never underestimate a person with a journal.

Property of Stormberry

Journaling is kind of the other end of the planning and preparing. It is the summarizing and processing. There are many ways to do this too, and there is people that keep also many journals for different purposes. I usually have one journal, though for a while I've been also using a Simple Diary a friend of mine gave me, in which I either pick here and there a page at random, or look for one that has the kind of prompt I want to fill out - it's kinda funny to have a non-chronological diary like this. I also have a journal that's too... designed and thematic to be a real journal of any sort for me (I write sooo much and have soooo many thoughts and opinions, I just don't have time for top tens, favorite music of a whole page covered with a black butterfly), in which I only write in pencil, short and "cryptic", dark thoughts. Yeah, I have those too. It's like my punk-journal. No dates.

But these are like my "shot" journals, stuff that stays there through the years and, get attention, the-gods-know-when. Good, shot journals for the instant boost or unloading, or taking the edge of something. But my journal, MY JOURNAL - oh ho hoooo! - that's something else. Even if I don't write every day - which I don't - when I write, it's deep, detailed, and nearly forensic. I love that.

This year I also decided to start using my Witches's Datebook - a datebook I have gotten every year since 2012, if I remember correctly - also to record small notes on my mood or things that made me tick or made me smile. The idea was to start making a sort of lunar journal, which, yeah, not only I don't journal daily, I had no idea who could I make a spread for that in my planner. The idea was to record quite simply how I feel, so I could see actually how the moon and its phases affect me. In the end, well, you can see, I used it also to record stuff like a particular call from someone, a witchy virtual meeting, or just feeling like I really, really love someone in particular that day.

For two years now, I have decided to use these datebooks only to plan stuff that related to my personal or academic life. I wanted a work-free space, and so stuff like classes, exams, meeting friends and so on, got there. It was also on my bullet journal, mind you, but I also copied it there, specially because this datebook is my reference for stuff like astrological aspects to consider (Mercury Retrograde being major there, which starts tomorrow, by the way), and also the daily color. If you check many of my previous ones, most of them are quite blank, but recently they seem more full, and now... well, it feels like I need a wee bit more of space. :-) But then, for that, when the thoughts overflow, if I feel like I want to dissect them, I pull out my journal, uncap a pen - or two - and let the ink and the thoughts flow together.

So, in the end, I have a journal, and along with it, I have littl journal helpers that either aid in the process of refining the idea and shed the initial punch out of them, or they accumulate small bits here and there, so that later on I can wax poetry on this or that is so totally wrong/right about this, and what I think about it, and where the flaws in the logic are, and thus why I come to the well-thought conclusion... of whatever I conclude.

The point is, it's ok to plan & prepare, and heck! do it as much as you can! But when life throws a wrench into your gears, or you need to chillax a little or you just need to unload and let go and have a non-planned, non-prepared, just free flowing moment, don't beat yourself over it, and take any way, shape or form you feel like it. Scribble in pencil on a corner of your planner, type down a short note in your notes app, or use a journaling app, or take a picture and write a caption, or write nothing, draw a spiral on a post-it... express yourself, for yourself, in nay way you can connect.

That's the point.

Quaratine Diaries and Journals

Property of Stormberry.
From my own journal.

Maybe you have heard of these diaries and journals, but the first time I did was throught an article in the New York Times published on March 30th, 2020. The article spoke about how people around the world has been turning to pen and paper in these days of staying at home and isolation to record the flow of their days, their thoughts, their fears and their experiences.

Some people has taken pen and paper for the first time to write about what goes on, making do with the art of journaling or keeping a diary as their days stretch into weeks and months in confinement, with fear of the outher world while at the same time yearning for it. Others have already been journaling ad have now turned to their trusty pages to record their experiences or find solace to the angst and burdens that now bend their backs and hearts.

I do not know of anyone around me keeping such journals, though I do know of people who journal. I am, for one, the kind of diary-keeper that would be considered the most unreliable one for recording events that happen around me or in the real world, to call it some how. I journal about my feelings, about intimate recounts of happenings with a handfull of people from my environment, with usually no information that might help place these events in any sort of social or historical context. For the love of the Gods, I just spent four months recording the events of a single day spent with Fritzl!

Property of Stormberry
From my personal journal

And yet still...

And yet still, I have found that I want to record some things that have been happening, that have affected the general tide of the society in which I live, and thus affecting my relationships with others as well as my state of mind. I'm certain my journal won't be listed in any book of history, nor it is my intention to record anything in it for anyone but myself, if I ever decide to go back and consult it, but I do find it important to try and illuminate in my notes the fact that there is a pandemic swirling around the world and upending life as we know it.

Things change, human contact change. I find myself wondering whether I'll be able to experience a long, sustained hug again, if I'll be able to hug, to feel against my arms the sure warmth of and solidity of someone I love. If I'll be able to kiss again, burry my nose in the crook of the neck of someone and breath in their scent, feel their hair against my face and between my fingers.

I'm still moved to write about my feelings and their evolution, collect and systematize my memories in the minute dissection of someone, holding their actions between the steel tines of my nib, beating softly as ink pours over them and cut them into tiny pieces with my words as I find new and new meanings of every action, every word and every gesture, combined with the yuxtaposition of other collected memories and experiences that help me draw parallels.

I change. We all change, and our old coping mechanisms might have been compromised. Mine have, as I can no longer drive to a coffeeshop, order a specialty coffee and claim a table for myself to write and sometimes also do some people-watching. We must adapt, and quarantine journals or diaries, or just our regular journals and diaries can help us navigate these new waters.

Memories Are All That's Left

Property of Stormberry

A couple of days have passed that are proven to be emotionally straining. I'm trying to come up with a better word, but honestly, I can't. Ever since November 17th, when a chance meeting with an old friend, I had been feeling emotionally restless. We talked for much longer time than usual, and they unloaded quite a heavy burden that changed the way I saw many things about them. I also opened up a lot about them, and was rather brutally honest about some things that had perspired in the past. Those things weren't pretty things, but rather unveiled a dark side of my heart. To this day I have no certainty about how they took in that information.

There have also been issues at home, where my brother is going through some family issues and we are doing what family does in times like this: gather up tighter and hold up the one that needs most support. There have been other straining issues that might have grinded on my nerves due to the second hand pain I've been exposed to, and then comes the meeting and getting closer to people who might be romantically interested in me. Or are and I just don't want to acknowledge it for what it is.

Property of Stormberry

The truth is, I think I don't like the idea of me in a romantic relationship. I do have been in them, and I do have loved my partners, but I think those times are well past before me, and though I might be attracted to the people I'm going out with and seeing, I'd rather have the friendship and forgo the romance. Or could it be that I'm not that much into either of them? Or is it that maybe my friend's issues are taking an undue amount of my thoughts and that's keeping me from finding my balance and concentrating on what's really important - this being me feeling good?

I've been pondering in this a lot.

Normally, I have always cautioned my friends from getting too wrapped up in other people's issues, and look at me, getting all wrapped up in the personal problems of my friend. Not like I can solve them, nor like it would be my place. So why I am being sucked into their clusterfuck? Well, because I have the feeling that the time left on our friendship is quickly coming to its end.

I don't know precisely how to explain this, but this has been the dynamic of our life encounters since forever, and so I have now the feeling that soon we are to part ways and a couple of decades will pass before we see each other again, if ever. Not like we share much, but we have shared some deep stuff, and so they feel like a sort of comrade or a fellow soldier in the battlefield of life. I have made some notes about them and as I was recording some events, I came to the realization that, people come and go, but the memories that we keep from them often times remain with us much, much longer. Like feathers of a bird, they are a small part of the whole bird, but they remain with those who have collected them long after the bird has past.

We are to part soon, and I wonder if this is also the reason why I seem to be trying to collect their feathers by handfulls, as if I could stuff a pillow with them, to rest my head on them at night.

Feeling So In Love

Today I'm in a particular state of mind. Maybe it has been something that has been forming in me since my last trip to Hungary, when my relationship to one of my friends became deeper in some emotional levels I don't fully understand yet. I went through some hard break outs - I came out of the broomcloset to a family member, which was something I had not planned to do - and that had left me sensible. I took some risks I would have not considered before, like getting a tattoo done - the word "witch" on my wrist, nontheless, and related to this I also found incredible support from other friends of mine. My Best Friend, my Angel, my Deep and Sweet Love had also gone mellow on me, so amazing and embracing and understanding, and we shared so much this time, my love for him swelled and warmed and wrapped the whole Universe. I came so close to him again, that it may have rendered me vulnerable to the softness of life and emotions.

Then there was this other dear friend of mine, next to whom I found my Spirit spreading wings and opening up. I found myself in a strange willingness to trust, to give in and unshackle myself from my eternal defensive stance. I laid down my weapons and let myself to be soft, giving, yielding. No longer a warrior or a a member of a royal court constantly cunning and plotting to stay alive in a world of politics and treason.

I came back from this trip sensible, prone to mellow emotions, and so I have found myself more often than not slipping into melancholic emotions brought upon by the sweet sadness of remembrance. A perfect state of mind for poetry to spring from my pen, where my pen prone to such, though shall we know that my few pieces of poetry are related to love and death and thus, dedicated to Henrik.

I have found myself yearning for these memories, feeding my ears and soul with movies and music that nourish this longing, and thus I have been delving into the hopeless romanticism of "Kimi No Nawa" and its soundtrack. This topic of love remaining secret, unexplainable, unattainable, a love that pierces through barriers impossible to grasp for others, and yet there, fighting with teeth and nails to remain alive in the only temple where it can find some safe haven , has struck hard in me. Loves that are eternally locked inside me, that must go unspoken, that will live eternal in my memory.

I'm thinking about getting a second tattoo, this one featuring two ravens: Hugin and Munin, who are Odin's ravens. There is a poem related to them, which goes like this:

Hugin and Munin fly each day
over the spacious earth.
I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,
yet more anxious I am for Munin.

(source: Wikipedia)

Hugin represents the Thought and Munin the Memory. As my thought has wandered and my memory has revisited these sweet memories of mine - my loved and affairs, our sweet shared moments and the departures that had inevitable come after - I have found myself hugging tighted to Munin. Then, for things don't just happen, I tumbled upon some old unsent e-mails addressed to an old adventure of mine that has had a much larger effect on me and my life that he will ever imagine, or I'll ever confess to him. Re-reading our letters (and astonished at the impressive level of French I had then) brought me to tears. Right then I wanted to run to my friend and hide in his embrace. Regardless of the "dabbling" we have engaged in - off and on - I needed a friend that would hold me tight and lend me strenght while I weathered the storm of my emotions and memories, while I held hard into Munin's wings and muttered long spoken phrases, and tasted again the aged petals of those dusty memories of mine. I had allowed myself to be breakable and I have shattered so sweetly into shards of old memories of love. Through the distance and his words, my friend lent me support, and I folded into myself, as I have in so many other times, licking my wounds, drinking my own blood and finding sweet joy in my old wounds. Oh dear, I am human, I am soft and vulnerable, and I will bear any pain so that I can keep forever in my memory the moments I have shared with them.

As Odin fears, so do I, the day that Munin no longer comes back to me.