I stopped writing because I lost my favorite little book.
It was navy blue with red flower buds, that had little green and yellow leafs.
It fit perfectly in my palms.
It was light and only 1/4 full, with words, nearest my heart. A safe haven of only my most delicate reflections.
I stopped writing at first because I thought I would find it soon.
Today I realized I’ve stopped writing in any journal since it went missing.
And so I discovered several things...
First, that when we experience a loss, sometimes we find ourselves ... and other times the loss leads to further abandon.
I stopped writing, thinking I’d save my words for that little notebook I cherished so much. The object of a private and personal affection. How and why did I forgoe my own expression simply because I could not pour it into a specific vessel?
(2) And so it is with our inner gifts and love. Sometimes we restrict and stifle them, because of notions we build up of how something is supposed to be, when allowing them to flow freely, is what fulfills us.
(3) I bought that journal on the brink of a personal exodus. It was a cold yet sunny morning beside the Black Sea.
I walked many miles that day.
Alone. Restless. Heartbroken. Determined.
I gazed at the cover of this little notebook, with the sounds of the beach gently in the background.
I can remember the brightness of the sun filling the store as I laid eyes on the style of the flower print; it was reminiscent of an old world and capturing a time when narrowness was palpable...
Yet it is only in this moment, that I can see the connection. I experienced an unconscious kinship with whoever may have drawn it. One I’ve only become aware of now, through a reflection of my old self.
The print revealed a person that longed for liberation and sought refuge and hope in the expression of drawing something beautiful.
The day I purchased it I thought to gift it to someone in the future. Not knowing who or when. Uncertain of a tomorrow as a cataclysm stormed within.
I bought the journal and stored it somewhere to be forgotten for a while.
I journied on, away from the trappings of my own old world.
I moved around from place to place.
Always taking it with me.
Always thinking, “It will be a fine gift for someone one day.”
And then one day I found it again ... this darling little notebook, tucked away in a drawer. Unopened, unused. With a red silk string stitched in as a bookmark, waiting for that someone of the future.
I opened up the pages and began to write. Fluidly and without a need for pause or retention. Neither correction or revision. Marking the day we’d let go of the old with a fresh page.
(5) Looking forward, it’s hard to make out clearly what lays ahead. What stumbles and heartache we may encounter, what adventures we will find. But unwittingly we have an intuition that in profound moments of oneness will plan and conspire to help our future self.
There are little treasures we’ve planted in tomorrow that we can’t see today. A field of Easter eggs, good luck charms and symbols that can keep us growing, showing us where we’ve strayed and reminding us of our true selves.
“I stopped writing because I lost my favorite little book,” I began to a loved one. Attempting to share and unburden myself of a small sadness I was quietly carrying over my lost little notebook and the precious poems it stored which are now only held in its pages.
Jotting the words whirled me into the windmill of my mind... And perhaps that is how the next chapter begins. Maybe someone else will haphazardly or by fate find themselves gazing at its blue cover with flower buds of red, green and yellow. Maybe they will be moved by the print the unknown artist drew and find the anonymous musings within of some use to them in the present or reserve them for a future self.
Who knows maybe that someone will be me again.
