Nameless One

"Make a wish list like someone who can do anything, and pray it to God because He can do anything." --Laney Stroup (student at TMC)

I have fallen in love with my journal. I don't know it's name so for now, I address it as Nameless One. I had another journal but it's pages have been filled...virtually every line scribbled with fine pencil lead...it's been paper-clipped with memories and stained by root-beer and tears. We went through a lot together this past semester...it knew me very well...I have learned all there is about it...I've memorized the dog-eared pages and remember distinctly when I scribbled "J-Me" on the front...I remember the Sunday morning Alina put the sticker of JB and I on there...it saw me through my nervous wanderings...It heard my prayers to God before I went to Bible Study the first time with JB...it knows exactly what I wrote about our first kiss and my plane trip up to Medford to visit my family...it knows everything. And I was sad to see it's last page scribbled with words that I had put down...hopefully they meant something worthwhile to the journal...I didn't even have enough room to say good-bye but maybe it doesn't know I am gone...maybe it thinks my pages are filled too. Maybe in it's eyes, we have reached a mutual agreement to stop life...wouldn't that be nice? To stop life? I guess in some ways it could be nice...but there are area's in my life that I am ready and eager to move forward in. Life is good. Change is inevitable...just take it like a fine sip of wine.

JB gave me a new journal for my birthday. This may sound silly to you but I didn't want to write in it...at all...at least, not for a very long time. When I first saw it, I was enthralled and captivated by it's sophistication...it is so pretty and fine...but my heart was still with my simple cheap leather journal that I got for 4 or 5 dollars at a Walden Book Store up in Oregon...I poured myself into it's pages...and in it, I found a bit of myself that I had never discovered before. Closing it on it's final page was a sad day for me...no joke.

But this journal...this creamy textured journal with smooth buttermilk pages...this Nameless One...well...I have fallen in love with it. My yellow number two enjoys it's pages, it is hungry to fill the emptiness with my thoughts and wanderings...just the other night, I woke up and my hands ached to write...it was in the middle of the night and I got up out of my bed and, I think because of my grogginess, my eyes were transfixed on a patch of moonlight that sqeezed through the blinds into our room. It was beautiful, eerie though. And I couldn't take my eyes off of it...I stumbled my way to the bathroom ( I don't do well in the middle of the night or in the early morning) and I remember thinking that I was thankful that my feet had memorized the path because I don't think I could have gotten us there...and I spoke that in my head...but I thought to myself....and yes this is silly...I thought to myself, "my journal would like to know about the moonlight I saw and how good my feet are with directions..." So the next morning, that is what I did. I told my journal all about my midnight excursion...and I think it smiled. I think it wants to get to know me. And I yearn for my thoughts to find their home...somewhere. And my journal seems like a safe place, don't you think?

A sample of Friday's entry:
"I suppose you [the journal] are more of a symbol to me than anything else,a way of escape for a moment's repose...a place in which I can write, reflect, and then recollect my thoughts in the solitude of reason."

Thank you, Nameless One. You are turning out to be a valuable friend.