Journals - I

I am certain that some people keep journals the 'right' way with precisely dated entries and logs of their activities and descriptive whole proper sentences in flowing beautiful cursive or precise hand lettering, such that they are a chronological window to their activities and thoughts over time. I have journals, yes. Many of them. All over the place. Rare is the sentence in them, however. They are lists of priorities, lists of impressions, questions, ideas, half-baked thoughts in no particular order, rarely dated with so much as the year, in sloppy barely legible mostly lower case printing that rambles across the page and even onto the next one. Often the entries are sideways or at some jaunty angle if jotted in the car or in a tent or on a hike. Tiny messy sketches of art and design ideas are interspersed with to do lists and chore lists and shopping lists and phone numbers with no owner specified and addresses with no city or zip.
But half the fun in coming across of of these oddities in a pile of magazines or maps or books or knitting or at the bottom of a suitcase or the pocket of a messenger bag is interpreting the words and then trying to place them at a time, a place, an event.
This is an entry from camping in the park at the first WomanSong I attended in Grand Rapids, North Dakota in 2007:


"Coyotes

Cottonwood leaves

Sunsets

Shadows of branches

Star-filled skies

Mist

Rain

Cold - So?"