Over the years I’ve filled up about three or four pocket-sized Moleskine journals. I write to relax, for catharsis, to focus my thoughts before getting work done, or out of boredom. Rather than recording precious memories or significant quotes, my journals are filled with angst: all the random anger and pain of the past few years, sprinkled with pockets of hope for the future and descriptions of the stories in my head. Mostly, they’re a casket for all the negativity I harbor. I record my frustrations in an attempt to exorcise them. My journals are toxic.
I keep the filled ones in a painted wooden casket that used to hold dates from Saudi Arabia. I don’t usually like to take them out to reread them- that’s unleashing the horrors of Pandora’s Box unto the world again. The saving grace, just as in the myth, is Hope-the hopeful entries that peak here and there amongst the angst- the times when I wrote about prospective projects, or happy occasions.
Here are the first pages of the most recent journals:
September 29, 2005:
“Latoya mentioned that I seemed like an East Village kid that I seemed like a native New Yorker; I attribute that to displacement- my skills chameleon-like, not to blend in, but to disappear from notice.”
Written near the end of my stint as a student in New York and desperate not to return home to the Philippines. This acknowledgment by an acquaintance reassured me that I seemed at home in New York, and that- being native- I would someday return there, my true adopted home.
March 15, 2006:
“2:40 am. I am upset. I lost a diary exactly like this one after using it for only a week. It had several personal entries, including my ruminations on suicide, love, and the names and masthead information of several magazines. I suppose I should be glad there wasn’t more of it. Still, there were some very intimate writings. I feel like one of my organs is lost somewhere in New York.”
Written soon after I arrived in Manila after living in New York and Jakarta for six years. My greatest fear, that of returning to the city of my birth, had finally come:
August 22, 2008:
“Well, here we are, another book another batch of whining- or at least that’s what my mother calls it. I’m in Manila, everything I’ve feared: it alternates between deadly dull and unspeakably miserable. I barely drive here for fear of getting lost, no parking, crime, busses, etc. and anyway, where would I go? This city contains nothing of interest. There are no parks. The malls are all alike. There are no other places to go. Why go anywhere? Why try?”
February 10, 2013:
“Let me begin by voicing my fears and maybe that will help exorcise them. I fear becoming old without ever having accomplished anything significant. I’m already halfway there after all. I fear not doing stories, my comics. I fear being lazy and being a loser- a person who frittered their life away on unimportant things. I fear many things. I fear being afraid all my life.”
This year, I took a break from Moleskines when I found a lovely new pocket-sized notebook called the Jasmyn from the French company Clairefontaine. It launched my recent notebook/ journal fever:
June 12, 2014:
Might as well break the ice! This is my first time not using a Moleskine in 10 years of journaling, and I’m excited to see how the Jasmyn holds up! And I must say, rather worryingly I didn’t realize that rounded corners and lines stretching to the end of the page were so important! Plus, is it just me or does the extra thickness to the paper actually create an uncomfortable height? Oh, great, I just bought three of these f*ckers.”
My journaling has accelerated in recent months. The Jasmyn turned out lovely in the end, but I switched to another journal, a blue pocket Ecosystem Author that my mother brought home from California:
July 2, 2014
“Am a little grumpy today due to being rejected by (a publishing company). The odds weren’t great from the start, it’s true. But still, looking at the art they publish right now- I was rejected by these guys? So what? F*ck them. They don’t get it- I can find my own audience. Don’t need them. It’s of course rippling down into all other facets of my life…my reactions to everything…and all because I got rejected by (a publishing company) with admittedly terrible art. So, what does that say about my stuff?”
I’ve written through half of the most recent journal in only one month- the most writing I’ve done yet. At this rate, I estimate my next first page to start sometime in October or November. Meanwhile, I continue to hunt down pocket-sized notebooks to fill up. A whole row of them, some still wrapped in cellophane, are lined up on my shelf and waiting for that wooden casket.
Featured image copyright Drew Selby via Creative Commons (CC-BY-2.0)
