Outlet

S-- and I spent some time this evening perusing some potential new journals on Papaya's website. I stumbled upon this particular journal and knew immediately that this was the one which would house my experiences and musings for the upcoming months.  However tempting it is to go completely electronic and digital, there is still something magical about holding a journal in your hands containing pages filled with your handwriting, your photos and other physical mementos that no e-rsatz blog could ever accommodate. The handwritten journal literally travels with you as a trusty companion, always open to listen to whatever comes to mind, its blank pages inviting you to play, to be passionate, to be creative or simply to empty yourself.

I love the feeling of searching for a journal that resonates with me at a given point in my life.  If possible, I like to spend some time holding the book, flipping through the pages to determine if there is a connection.  It sounds perhaps strange to speak of a "connection" to an inanimate object, but I have found from experience that if I do not carefully select my medium, then I am often hard-pressed to fill its pages (or boxes) at all. 

S-- and I were bursting at the seams with creative energy this afternoon, so we stopped by Alpha to procure some coloured markers and a few pencils to complement the water-colour pencils that we had purchased a few days before. We sat for hours at the table together, sketching and experimenting.  Memories of Colorado kept wafting through my consciousness, so I invoked an old adventure of one of my most beautiful hikes at Apex with Abdulghani just after I had broken my leg to create the following sketch.  We had seen a beautiful butterfly perched at our feet on the trail and I was able to take a photo of its gossamer wings just before it fluttered away.  

It was the first time in a very long while I had put pen and marker to paper like that and it felt so good to do so!

S-- and I have humble intentions of using these basic tools to create beauty in our life while our days are mostly focused on our work at school.  We want to cover our walls in things that we have co-created simply because it's a wonderful experience that makes us happy.