Rounding the Bend in the Road

"Buy yourself an expensive journal as a means of seeing how much you value your words." This was a challenge I set for myself when I recognized that though I admired beautiful journals, I wouldn't spend money on what I saw as my meaningless drivel. By expensive, I mean I chose something the price of which made my critical voice squeal, "Your words don't deserve that!" Once I had the journal, I noticed my inclination to save it for the day I could write seamless, poetic prose. This day, I finally realized, would never come if I did not practice writing without judging the words before I set them on paper. So I learned, first off, to scribble on the first page or to write around in circles. Sometimes I drew a stick figure or wrote with my non-dominant hand. In other words, I messed up the journal's perfection intentionally so I could quit worrying about it.

I challenged myself this way for years, pushing myself at the end of each journal to up the ante, to demonstrate with each journal the level at which I valued my writing. One day about 5 years ago, I had an experience that brought closure to this particular challenge to my relationship with my writing.

On opening day of Asheville's summer street festival—a Breugal painting yet to be put on canvas—the aromas of souflakia, eggrolls, and tacos mix with those of sweaty bodies, beer, cigarettes, and the horses ridden by the mounted police. Crying babies, Peruvian flutes, rap and rock and old-time fiddle compete for air space.

I wander through the throngs, past the craft booths, stopping occasionally, but rarely lingering. Then, I see them: rows and rows of handmade journals filled with empty pages waiting for words.

I step under the awning and pick up a book inside a plastic envelope. I hold it and look around for the voices of a woman speaking to the man in the booth.

"Where are you from?" she asks.

"We're from Nepal," he answers "and live in Winston."

"Oh," she says, "there are very few people from Nepal here."

I turn back to the journal in my hand. Thirty dollars I read beneath the plastic and set it down.

"Let me take it out for you." A small delicate woman has moved up beside me, wearing a broad smile. Her skin has the color and translucence of the handmade paper on the cover of the journal I hold.

"Very beautiful," she says. "Feel the paper made of rice. And here," she touches the design on the cover. "This is the real plant, bamboo, pressed between the paper."

I know I will not leave this booth without buying something. "What else do you have?" I ask, hoping for something cheaper.

She shows me with a gesture. "You can write, you can draw. You can give gift."

"I am a writer," I say.

Her face lights up. "Oh, then maybe you like a bigger one, if you have many words. Only five dollar more."

The bamboo journal in my hand has claimed me. "I think it's this one. I'm going on a writer's retreat and this was the first one that spoke to me."

She takes it from me. "Whatever is written here will last a long time. This is very good paper. What will you write here?" She looks at me and waits.

"In such a special book, I will write the secrets of my heart," I say, "my poetry."I rarely write poetry; and the words sound sentimental, positively hokey. I don't know why I'm saying this. But then, I don't spend thirty dollars on handmade journals either.

She beams and leans toward me, "Oh, then it's from one artist to another artist, isn't it?"

I think of my stumbling efforts, my fear of claiming my writing, and look into her sparkling eyes, at her slender hands caressing the book. I bow, my hands pressed together in Buddhist gassho. "Thank you. Are you the artist?"

"No, my husband." She gestures to the man I'd noticed earlier. I hand her the money. She darts behind me and back, a hummingbird of a movement. In her hand now she holds a tiny black journal, its cover held closed with a piece of polished wood.

"Please," she says, and offers it to me. "From one artist to another."

Often, we don't recognize the bend in the road until we're past it, looking back. Without any conscious understanding, I switched to writing in spiral-bound, college-lined notebooks after filling the pages of her husband's beautiful journal (and not with poetry or anything needing to be preserved a very long time). Only months later did I understand: I valued my words now. Along with the little black journal, I'd accepted the gift of being a writer.

Peggy Tabor Millin, MA
© 2007
ClarityWorks Newsletter