journal
by christine kane

I was visiting Boston last summer, and I got to have dinner with a former college professor of mine.  While we were driving to Harvard Square,  I remembered out loud that I needed a new journal. My professor said we could find a journal in Cambridge before dinner. 

He had been my Creative Writing professor.  Now he’s the Chair of the English department.  Given these credentials, I assumed he’d know the hows, whys and whats of shopping for a journal.  But when we got to the The Coop, and he handed me a Harvard spiral noteboook and said “Here,”  I knew I was in for a long night.

“What’s that?”  I asked. 

“What?” he responded. “You wanted a journal.  It says ‘Harvard.’  It’ll make you feel smart.”  

I stared at it.  “I can’t use that as a journal.  What are you thinking?”  

He stared at it.  “What?” he asked again.

I told him that The Coop was not the right place, and that we needed to go to one of those specialty froofy stores.  Here, he stopped and looked at me.   “Froofy?”  
Froofy.   It’s not in the dictionary, but it’s a good word.  Froofy stores can range in spectrum from Starbucks to The Body Shop to a small bathroom boutique—any shop where you find yourself uncontrollably pulled to buy something you would most likely never even notice, much less want, in any other setting.  Say, for instance, you’re meeting a friend for tea at a Starbucks.  You gave up coffee over a year ago.  You’re proud of this accomplishment.  And yet,  as you’re standing beneath the sign that says “Place Order Here” surrounded by the beans, the chocolates, the relief maps of Brazil and Peru, you hear a voice that couldn’t possibly be yours say “Venti Carmel Macchiato, please.”   Before you know it, you’re handing the cashier your last five-dollar bill.  Or you find yourself in the The Body Shop spraying a peach-colored liquid all over your arms and neck that makes your skin feel and smell like it did at your 6th-grade class picnic when Arthur Martin spilled Orange Crush all over you.

Then there’s indepently-owned froof.   (Anyone who has ever set foot in downtown Asheville knows this froof all too well.  In fact, I think it’s the new industry in Western North Carolina.)  These are shops that smell of an unlikely combination of things:organic mud, lye soap, tree bark, moss, water.   Inside, drone-y music layered with the sound of oceans, crickets, and waterfalls manages to confuse the left part of your brain.  This is “Artist’s Way” froof.  Froof for the soul, if you will.  Aromatherapy burners.  Little statuettes of Buddha.  Hand-made journals.  Fountains that trickle softly (which, when purchased, brought home, and placed in your office makes your best friend stop in the middle of a phone conversation and ask “Are you peeing?”).

We arrived at the froofy store and found the journals.  My professor began handing them to me one by one. 

“Hmmm,” said I,  flipping pages. 

“What?” he asked for the third time in a half hour.  

“I don’t know,”  I said.  

As we were leaving the store empty-handed, he said “Hello!?  It’s just a notebook!”

But it’s not “just a notebook.”  It’s who you are at that particular time.  Certainly, there have been periods in my life when a $1.25 spiral notebook was perfect.   Notebooks from the drug store aisle that smells like crayons and back-to-school shopping.  1200 pages of college-rule because I knew I’d be doing some pretty awful writing. 

Then again, I’ve also spent ridiculous amounts of money on those earthy texture-y recycled-paper journals with grass clippings, leaves and flower petals mashed into the pages.  The kind that force you to pause after each line of writing to blow various pieces of flecked-off would-be compost out of the way.  These are the notebooks for the upheaval times in life.  The “I-wish-Wayne-Dyer-would-come-over-and-tell-me-why-I-should-get-out-of-fetal-postion” times.  When the writing hand needs to feel substance, nature, and earth beneath it.

We continued our search through Cambridge.  We foraged through lava lamps, Mystery Machine mugs, mohair journals, and clothing that could fit only 12-year-old girls or the cast of “Friends.”   A clerk with magenta hair and a pierced eyebrow said, “Omigod I totally get that.  I’ve kept a journal since high school.  It has to be the perfect notebook!”  My professor rolled his eyes.

My “journal” writing began in 2nd grade in a five-year diary from Ben Franklin.  It was dark blue and had a gold lock.  Each day allowed about four lines of writing.  I kept it in a box marked “TOP SECRET.”  I still have it.  Here’s an entry: 
January 10:   Today it was terble. Our dinner was chiken stew. That was terble and we ran out of hot water.

In 6th grade, I got a real journal for my birthday.  It had both lined and blank pages.  I wrote my daily dramas on the lined pages, my handwriting getting more puffy as my teen years progressed.  On the blank pages, I drew pictures, documented the progress of a watermelon seed I had planted in a dixie cup, pasted fortunes from Chinese food dinners, and made collages featuring Michael Jackson and Luke Duke.

“Alright then.  You like this one? Does it meet your requirements?”  My professor was sarcastic, but hopeful.  We were in a bookstore and I was holding a possible candidate for my next journal.

“Yeah. I guess this is it,” I said.  The pages were tracing-paper thin.  Perfect for bearing down hard with your ball-point and getting a kind of make-your-own-braille effect.

“Good,” he said, grabbing five of the same journal off the shelf. 

“Get them all.  This way, we’ll spare the poor soul who happens to be out with you the next time you need a new one.”

“No!” I said, swiping the books from him and putting them back on the shelf. “No. Absolutely not. That’s all wrong.”

I tried this once.  I bought three of the same journal because I liked it so much.  Then, I never used a single one.  Much as my professor hated this process, it’s what I do.  I do it every time.  I rifle through Hello Kitty clocks, hemp pajamas, and over-priced soap.  I flip through the different papers and analyze the book shapes.  I’ve come to know and even accept the many voices  that occupy my mind during the process:  the one that tells me that hundreds of years from now, my  journal will be the discovery of the century; and the one that says my writing sucks so very much that I should probably just consider writing on old fast-food hamburger wrappers.

We were checking out.  As I was handing over my credit card, my professor picked up a heavy gold fountain pen from a display and said, “Do you need a pen to go with your journal, madame?”  I said, “Maybe I do.  But not that pen.  What are you thinking?”